<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Grit by WestOrEast</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598978">Grit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WestOrEast/pseuds/WestOrEast'>WestOrEast</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Parahumans Series - Wildbow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Female Protagonist, Fights, Superheroes, Violence, Yuri</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:35:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>60,066</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WestOrEast/pseuds/WestOrEast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ramona Cortez didn't expect to get powers. But now that she has them, how can she do anything else but go out and help the city?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter One</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>I yawned and stretched, blearily blinking as I tried to get my brain into gear. It was too early to be getting up. What time was it, anyways?<br/><br/>I blindly groped around, looking for where the clock was. Finally finding it, I pulled it towards so that I would have to move my head as little as possible. Seven thirty? Okay, maybe I had stayed up too late instead of it being too early.<br/><br/>And, I realized, I’d better get downstairs in order to bid farewell to the mothership. I rolled out of bed (almost literally) and landed on the floor. For a moment, I debated getting properly dressed, or at least putting a robe on. But it wasn’t <em>that</em> cold for a March morning and it was just me and Mom. She could handle the sight of me in panties and a t-shirt.<br/><br/>I stumbled down the stairs, still trying to get my brain into gear. Man, I was <em>not</em> looking forward to staying out this late again. But I was worried that I was going to have to. Maybe you could live on four hours of sleep after a while? Or die. And if I didn’t have to feel this tired in the grave, that <em>was</em> an attractive option.<br/><br/>I knew I should probably be feeling a bit more… involved after what had happened to me, but I just <em>couldn’t</em>. Not yet. And, frankly, with what I had been feeling last night as I came home, I’d take this tired apathy over the other options. Well, I supposed that excitement over getting undefined superpowers could also be something I was feeling, but it <em>wasn’t</em> what had been making me sweat and shiver last night on my way home.<br/><br/>I slid down into my chair in the kitchen and barely stopped myself from slumping forward and resting my head on my arms. I didn’t need to look up to see the slightly amused look Mom was giving me. I did look up when she slid a cup of tea towards me.<br/><br/>“Thanks,” I mumbled, wrapping my fingers around the hot mug.<br/><br/>“Good morning, Ramona,” Mom said, her voice slightly muffled as she took a sip from her own mug. “Sleep well?”<br/><br/>“Ugh,” I eloquently responded, blowing a bit on the hot tea and then taking a big gulp anyway. That woke me up, though not nearly as much as I needed it to. “How about you?” There was just no reason to worry Mom about that stuff. I was an adult (who lived at home with her mom), I could handle my own life.<br/><br/>There was a bit of a pause there, and I rubbed my eyes as I waited for Mom to respond.<br/><br/>“Oh, well, you know how Finance is when they get drinking,” Mom said, a note of good cheer in her voice. “I’m glad that you didn’t wait up for me.”<br/><br/>Heh, I actually did. Or, at least, I had only gotten to sleep so recently that when Mom pulled in, she woke me up. Not that I had bothered to look at the clock to see just when that was.<br/><br/>After another gulp of tea, I felt energized enough to actually open my eyes all of the way and look up at Mom. And guess what? It was my mother, surprise, surprise.<br/><br/>A bit shorter than me but broader across the shoulders. Her skin was more olive than mine, which was more of a brownish shade like Dad. She looked pretty nice in her office blouse and skirt and had a small smile on her thin face as she looked at me. There was a bright gleam in her hazel eyes as well. She didn’t even seem hungover, which, given what happened to me when I had half a can of beer was <em>seriously</em> unfair.<br/><br/>“Just because you’re from Japan doesn’t mean that the office needs to do Japanese drinking… office… stuff,” I said, my mind apparently not quite up to putting into words the witty retort that had popped into my head. “Gurgh,” I said in summation and took another gulp of tea.<br/><br/>“Now, I’ll be home tonight for dinner,” Mom said, finishing her own cup and standing up. She walked around the table and pressed a kiss against the side of my forehead. My hand went up to make sure that she hadn’t left any lipstick behind. “You’ll be done with work in time for that?”<br/><br/>“Yeah, off at four thirty,” I said, nodding. “I’ll see what I can grab from the kitchen.”<br/><br/>Mom gave me a smile and then left the kitchen. A few seconds later, she left the house all together and I was all alone. Not even a pet fish to keep me company.<br/><br/>Well, that just meant that there were no other demands on my time. I could properly wake up, shower, all of that, and, before heading off to Kit’s Katering, I could get down to the <em>real</em> business.<br/><br/>After all, becoming a superhero was something I was going to have to <em>work</em> at.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>I parked my scooter at the edge of the road and looked around. Good, nobody in sight, at least for the moment. Plenty of time to get off of the road into the greenbelt. Man, having motorized transportation was one of the best things about being an adult compared to a kid.<br/><br/>I pulled the ski mask down over my face, feeling both stupid and like I was about to rob a bank. Which was ridiculous, since I was going to be <em>stopping </em>bank robbers. You know, ideally.<br/><br/>At any rate, I didn’t want just anybody to see my face. And that also meant it was time to get my ass in gear and go deeper into the woods, away from the road. There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic in and out of Brockton Bay, especially not on a twisty road that went into the mountains, but why take the chance?<br/><br/>I hurried into the woods until I could only hear the cars whooshing along the road, not actually see them. Okay, that should be deep enough. Any deeper and I was going to get lost and mauled by an overgrown chipmunk or something. Okay, I was a city girl, I admit it.<br/><br/>Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and called on my power. And almost instantly, frowned. It was still there, no worries about <em>that</em>. But it seemed a bit more… faded, maybe, then it had yesterday. No, not faded, maybe… hungry? It was a really weird sensation that was hard to properly describe. Especially since I had just gotten these powers so recently.<br/><br/>Well, let’s start with the basics. I sure hadn’t managed it last night, given everything else that had been going on.<br/><br/>“Fireball!” I shouted, pumping my hand forward. Nothing. “Um, energy shield!” Ditto. “Planet Cracking Explosion!” Well, at least I had managed to shut the birds up.<br/><br/>So what <em>could</em> I do? I sat down on the grass, drumming my fingers on the ground and looking inside of myself. Now that I was focusing, I could feel a certain… hungriness (?) inside of my body. Not in my stomach or anything, but kind of like I had a third arm that wanted a meal.<br/><br/>I paused, blinking. <em>That</em> was quite the metaphor. And not one that would normally have come to me. Was that <em>me</em> doing the feeling here, or was it the power? Also, how could I tell the difference? Well, there was one easy to way find out, I guessed. And it might even work!<br/><br/>“What’s the square root of twenty-seven and a half?” I asked out loud and thought even <em>harder</em>.<br/><br/>Nothing. Well, I supposed that if powers actually talked to their people, then I would have seen it mentioned in interviews and stuff, and not just on the season finale of <em>Ward High</em>. So, onto something a bit more productive.<br/><br/>I fell back against the chilly grass and moss on the forest floor and stared up at the bare limbs up over me. What to do, what to do? I could <em>tell</em> that I had powers, there was a certain weird kind of energy inside of me. But what did they do? Besides give me muscles?<br/><br/>I rolled up my sleeve and looked down at my arm. Yep, that was more muscle on my arm than I had yesterday morning. I sat up and punched a tree. Then I winced. Okay, I was stronger, but I wasn’t superstrong. Ow.<br/><br/>Well, that should still be enough, shouldn’t it? And I didn’t seem to be doing <em>anything</em> else noteworthy up here, all by myself. Also, I was getting cold and bored. It was time to head back down into the city.<br/><br/>Tromping back out of the forest, I got on my scooter and twisted it around to look down the foothill at Brockton Bay. Down there was the Empire 88 (right at the top of my shitlist), the ABB and a bubbling froth of lesser crooks, thieves and scum. And it was all on me to clean it up. Oh, sure, there was New Wave and the Protectorate, but if they <em>could</em> have done something about it now, why hadn’t they? No, it was going to take a new approach, by someone with a new power, to clean things up and set them right. And I was the woman for the job.<br/><br/>Although, obviously, I had a soft spot for Browbeat, given the whole ‘saved my life’ thing he had going for him. That was the kind of thing that endeared a guy to a girl. Especially when it was from those skinhead fuckers Victor and Othela. I was grateful and everything to Browbeat for doing that, but I was also <em>really</em> looking forward to getting some payback of my own on those two.<br/><br/>I wasn’t entirely certain what all they had done to me or what they would have done to a mixed race teenage girl who was alone at night, but that was the kind of thing I could ask questions about once I had broken their legs. And, you know, found them again.<br/><br/>I checked the time. <em>After</em> I got my butt down to Seventh Street and did my shift for today. And I’d better leave right <em>now</em>. I took off down the road, heading back into the city.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>Pulling up in front of the small storefront of Kit’s Katering, I paused to make sure that I looked okay. And, you know, hadn’t left the ski mask on. Kit was a pretty nice woman, but when you live in Brockton Bay, you make certain assumptions about what a person with a ski mask pulled over their face wants when they enter your shop and I <em>knew</em> Kit had a pistol tucked underneath the front desk.<br/><br/>But I was all good and stepped inside, giving Kit the sunniest look I could to make up for the fact that it was right at the very minute I was supposed to be starting my shift, and I still wasn’t in uniform. And I liked to think it was a pretty good smile on a pretty good face, on top of a pretty good body.<br/><br/>Dad’s Mexican heritage and Mom’s Japanese ancestry had combined to form someone who was obviously amazingly beautiful and perfect. Even if other girls had bigger boobs. And clearer skin. And black hair that didn’t try to eat combs. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t a ten out of ten, but I liked to think that I was at least a seven. And anyway, people <em>liked</em> short, skinny girls. They thought that sort of thing was cute. Especially when it came with dark eyes and olive-ish skin.<br/><br/>“Hey, boss,” I said, walking as quick as I could into the back to get my apron and stuff on. “Wonderful to see you today.”<br/><br/>I had timed this <em>perfectly</em>. Kit was on the phone, so the most she could do was wave a hand at me to shut up. And possibly to say ‘hello, Ramona, I’m glad that my only employee showed up to work on time today’.<br/><br/>I quickly got changed, with the apron, hair net and gloves that I needed to wear while preparing food for other people. The government could just be so <em>picky</em> about what you could and couldn’t do while in the food service industry.<br/><br/>Kit was off the phone when I got back up front, so I launched into the super-helpful attitude of a woman who was always ready to work for her pretty boss and who was always at work just a few minutes early. I leaned my elbows on the counter and gave her a bit smile, showing just how <em>ready</em> I was for the few hours of work I had for today.<br/><br/>Kit gave me a look that said she knew exactly what I was doing. I kept on smiling back. She rolled her eyes and pushed a pad across the counter to me.<br/><br/>“Good to see you, Ramona,” Kit said. “I want you to start on the cakes for the InterView party. Here’s what they want.”<br/><br/>“Got it, boss,” I said, glancing down at the specifications. “Anything else you need done today, just let me know.”<br/><br/>“Right,” Kit groaned, reaching up to rub her forehead. “If you could get the Petersons to pay their bill, that would be nice.”<br/><br/>I reached across the counter and patted her hand, giving her a smile. She tiredly smiled back. And even with the bags underneath her eyes, she <em>did</em> look cute. I had to admit, she was easily an eight out of ten, with green eyes and red hair and, what was by far the most important to men apparently, a chest that was at least two cup sizes larger than my own.<br/><br/>Plus, of course, she had a nicely plush figure. Something that Mom had actually commented on when she had met Kit once. Something about never trusting a skinny cook. Well, Kit wasn’t skinny, but she wasn’t exactly fat, either. I had heard her describe herself as pleasantly large once, which was something I pretty much agreed with.<br/><br/>My own girlish figure was something I took some pride in, which was why, even though it was <em>so</em> tempting, I avoided the sweets and sugars I worked with. Hey, a girl had to show self-restraint in at least <em>one</em> area of her life, right? And I’d better get working on the cakes, too. Unlike a lot of workers, the connection between my work and the business getting enough money to pay me was <em>really</em> obvious, with how Kit would take the envelope of cash from whoever we were working for and would take some of the bills out to hand over to me. And I wanted to keep making that money!<br/><br/>It was just past four when I stepped out of the small building. I stretched and looked around. It was getting dark out pretty fast. And TV assured me that criminals only came out after dark, just like bats. So, since it was still a few hours before I needed to be back home to have dinner with Mom, why <em>not</em> give my powers a whirl and see what I could find. And it just so happened that I had my costume all ready to go.<br/><br/>Which is to say, that I had my ski mask with two holes cut in front of it shoved into the pocket of my coat. I hopped onto my scooter and pulled away, waving goodbye at Kit who I could see in the front window. Brockton Bay wasn’t <em>entirely</em> made out of bad parts of town, but there were still a lot of them, and I knew one was just a few minutes away. I could start being a hero in there. And hopefully my first case would be The Problem of the Missing Scooter.<br/><br/>My costume could use some work, I knew. Like, a whole lot of work. Actually making it clear that it was a superhero costume and not a would-be bank robber with a severe lack of color coordination would be a <em>great</em> start. But I could only find a black ski mask, and I wasn’t going to go out wearing dark clothes and look like a villain. Especially since the only coat I had that was warm enough for a March night was a light grey and blue thing anyway.<br/><br/>So here I was, wondering if the first news of my debut was going to be an entry on a website called ‘Worst Dressed Heroes of All Time’. Well, victory was its own justification, so I just needed to find some crook and bring them in. And in a bad city like Brockton Bay, just how hard <em>could</em> it be to find some ne’er-do-well and arrest them? After all, with my experience with making sandwich platters and watching TV, surely I was perfectly well-equipped to bring down some scary motherfucker.<br/><br/>So I supposed it was a good thing that after wandering around the city streets for about half an hour, I found someone. And she was <em>obviously</em> a supervillain. Something about it just screamed that she was a bad guy. A bad girl.<br/><br/>Maybe it was the way she was walking down the street, whistling like she didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe it was the way that some guy looked up at her, turned around and stepped right back inside. Of course, the costume she wore, and the sledgehammer she was tossing from hand to hand was a pretty big clue.<br/><br/>I didn’t recognize her, but, frankly, that didn’t mean much. If Browbeat hadn’t introduced himself last night, and hadn’t said Victor and Othela’s names (Victor and Othela, surprisingly enough) I wouldn’t have known who <em>they</em> were, either. I supposed I should probably find out this girl’s name, at least before calling the cops on her. ‘You know, the one with the face’ wasn’t the most <em>helpful</em> of identifications.<br/><br/>She, whoever she was, was wearing a tight, bright blue and white costume, with a big smile painted on her face, like a clown’s makeup. Also, more importantly, the way she was tossing that sledgehammer around meant that she had to be pretty strong. But, then again, I was pretty strong too, and she didn’t know I was here.<br/><br/>I waited until she had gone past me and then stepped out of the alley I had been shivering in. The wind started to bite into me as soon as I got onto the street. I followed after her, taking a deep breath. Okay, this was it. This was going to be my first fight as a superhero. Not my first fight in general, but the first one where I wasn’t expecting a teacher to come along and break it up before things escalated beyond shoving and slapping.<br/><br/>The girl, who looked to be about my age, as much as I could tell from behind and with her makeup on, looked over her shoulder. Instantly she stopped and swung around, plating the head of the hammer down in between her feet. She glared at me.<br/><br/>“Listen, girlie,” she said as I hesitated, “if you think you can mug <em>me</em>, you’re a real idiot. Turn around and go do something that won’t end with a broken arm.”<br/><br/>“Who are you?” I asked, forcing myself to take a few more steps towards her. I was feeling really, <em>really</em> worried and could feel the sweat breaking out along my spine as I got closer to her. “Are you a villain?”<br/><br/>“What the hell is this?” She asked, her eyes narrowing through her makeup. She was still smiling, of course, but I could just about see the thin line of her mouth as she glared at me.<br/><br/>“I’m a hero and I’m going to bring you in,” I said, feeling a bit insulted.<br/><br/>“Right,” She said, rolling her eyes. “Well, hero, as ridiculous as it is to look at you, I’ve got a date with a second story window. See you never.”<br/><br/>She turned around to leave and I scowled. I started running towards her. She heard me coming and swung around herself, bringing her sledgehammer up and holding it low, swinging it back and forth.<br/><br/>As I got closer to her, I could feel… something. Now <em>really</em> wasn’t the time to focus on just what it was, but even with the blood pumping in my ears, I could tell it was nothing like what I had ever felt before.<br/><br/>Instead, as I got closer to her, I jumped at her. She actually wasn’t expecting that and hesitated for a second before swinging to the side. I missed entirely, and it was a <em>really</em> good thing that I kept on moving, because even as I rolled forward, I could hear the <em>woosh</em> of the hammer passing overhead.<br/><br/>I twisted around as I landed and sprang back up. Then I blinked, realizing that her hammer was gone, and instead, there was a long, glittering knife in one hand. Somehow, even though that could probably do a lot less damage than the sledgehammer could, it seemed a <em>lot</em> more threatening.<br/><br/>We paused for a second. I just had time to tell that the feeling I was, well, feeling was getting stronger before the woman lashed out at me. I swung to the side and yelped as a blob of fire flew out of her other hand and landed right next to me. My boot landed in it and I could feel the heat sinking through it before I kept on moving, dodging around on the street.<br/><br/>“Do you even <em>have</em> powers,” the woman asked, “or are you just some joker who put on a crappy mask?” She paused for a second and then laughed. “Hah, if you <em>are</em> a joker, I suppose at least you came to the right person.”<br/><br/>I tilted my head, trying to figure out what <em>that</em> meant. The clown makeup, I supposed. She must have seen my confusion and sighed.<br/><br/>“Don’t you even know who I am?” She asked, lazily tossing the knife from hand to hand. I shook my head and she sighed deeply. “I’m Circus. And <em>you’re</em> an idiot.”<br/><br/>With that, she lashed out at me again, the blade of the knife gleaming as she made two quick stabbing motions. I got out of the way of both of them, feeling the, well, feeling growing stronger as I moved backwards. She paused for a second, glaring at me through the white makeup. Then she kept on coming at me.<br/><br/>It was weird. I was doing a <em>lot</em> better than I would have thought I should have, against someone who was quicker and more experienced and had weapons. In fact, I was pretty certain I was moving faster than I had been beforehand. Circus seemed to think so too, as she paused, looking at me.<br/><br/>“Are you…?” She held her hand up and flexed, a weird kind of gesture. After a second, a matching knife appeared in her hand. “That took too long.” Her gaze flashed up at me. “Are you screwing with my powers, bitch?”<br/><br/>My jaw fell open. Shit, was <em>that</em> what I was doing? If it was, it did make quite a bit of sense. And maybe it meant that I was draining her powers, not blocking them off or whatever. Holy shit, that was a good power! Assuming, you know, that Circus didn’t gut me in the next thirty seconds.<br/><br/>She came at me again, and I kept on dodging. And then, as her arm passed in front of me, I got up the nerve to strike back. My hand lashed out and punched her in the wrist. Her knife went falling to the ground and she grunted out a curse. I drew back, just in time to avoid the next slash.<br/><br/>I was slowly getting faster and stronger, with some other abilities that I <em>really</em> couldn’t focus on long enough to figure out how, exactly, they worked. And Circus was steadily getting weaker and weaker. Unfortunately, she was still a <em>lot</em> more experienced than I was and she still had that other knife, so I wasn’t getting too close to her.<br/><br/>At least, not until I managed to stomp down hard on Circus’s foot. That, combined with punching her in the gut, made her drop the knife, which I kicked away, sending it sliding underneath a parked car. She retaliated with a punch to my own stomach that drove me back a bit. But not too much, because I could, somehow, see that it was coming almost before she even lashed out at me. While beforehand, I would have been left wondering what the hell hit me.<br/><br/>I was forced back a few steps, and saw Circus wincing as she took a step with the foot I had stomped on. She turned around and started for the other knife, that was still laying right there on the sidewalk.<br/><br/>Circus was out of position. It was my best chance. I leaped forward, crashing into her and knocking the two of us down to the street. She twisted around in my grip and I moved too, trying to get her to lay down and stop fighting. Given that we were both pretty much the same size, it wasn’t that easy, especially because I didn’t want to <em>kill</em> her. Or even hurt her that bad.<br/><br/>Embarrassing her, though, was an option it seemed. At least when I grabbed the low collar on her outfit and pulled, trying to get her down on the ground. Well, her top ended up dangling from my fist, and I got a good look at what Circus <em>didn’t</em> wear underneath her blue, tight clothing. My face went red, and even Circus squeaked. Partly because she fell down to the ground, but also because her breasts were on full display.<br/><br/>“You pervert,” she snarled, rolling around to glare up at me and not bothering to cover her chest. “What the hell are you doing?”<br/><br/>“Hey, I didn’t <em>mean</em> to do this!” I protested. “I thought it was tougher than tissue paper!”<br/><br/>“Give it back,” she growled, reaching up to grab at the tattered shreds of blue hanging from my fist.<br/><br/>And she didn’t reach it. It outright <em>vanished</em>. I blinked, not expecting that at <em>all</em>. And even as it did, there was a certain pressure in my mind. It was <em>really</em> surprising, but as I focused on it, blinking rapidly and taking a few shaking steps away from Circus, I realized that it was Circus’s costume. Or at least the part I had torn away from her.<br/><br/>Below me, Circus’s eyes were darting form side to side. Then she cursed and beat her fist against the pavement. She glared up at me.<br/><br/>“You even took away my pocket?” Circus said, glancing around. “Am I ever going to get it back?”<br/><br/>“Your pocket?” I asked, blinking in confusion and trying not to look down at her chest. I <em>had</em> seen the breasts of other women before, though never in real life. “You mean-oh.”<br/><br/>Circus’s top appeared in my hand as soon as I thought about it doing so. I blinked at it, then dropped it down on top of her. She rearranged it so that it would mostly cover her boobs and then kept on glaring up at me.<br/><br/>“I, uh, don’t know if you’ll be getting your powers back,” I said apologetically. “Maybe? You’re the first person I’ve done this to.”<br/><br/>“Beaten by a stupid rookie,” Circus said, groaning. “Well, now what? We just going to sit here for the rest of the night? You already screwed up my job so there goes <em>that</em> reward.”<br/><br/>“No,” I said, looking around. “You’re going to go to jail, and the cops will know what to do with you.”<br/><br/>I grabbed my pocket, about to take out my cell phone. Then I realized that I probably shouldn’t use my actual cell phone that could be traced. I looked up and down the street, wondering if Circus would let me use <em>her</em> phone. Probably not, and I couldn’t even see where she would keep a phone in that costume anyway. Certainly not, um, I glanced up and told myself that it was a good thing that she had covered her tits. Certainly not between her breasts. Um. Right.<br/><br/>“There’s a pay phone down the street,” Circus said as I looked around. “Try there.”<br/><br/>“Right, thanks,” I said, turning around to head there.<br/><br/>I got half a dozen steps before I realized just what the hell I was doing. I stopped, and immediately heard the sound of pounding feet on the street. I whirled around, just in time to watch Circus scoop up the knife and dart into an alleyway.<br/><br/>“Fuck!” I swore, trying to decide if I should go after an armed woman in a dark alley. When you put it like that…<br/><br/>And anyway, I had beaten her and ruined her plans for the night. That had to count for <em>something</em>, right? Especially when it was my very first fight. Even if I didn’t arrest her, I had still beaten her.<br/><br/>I had done it. I had won my very first fight as a superhero, on my very first night out. It felt <em>good</em>. There was a smile on my face as I looked inward at the new… thoughts or feelings or whatever inside of me. And with a thought, a burst of flame appeared in my hand.<br/><br/>I had powers now. Real, actual powers. And it felt <em>good</em>. And just think of the good I could do with them! Oh, I could do all sorts of things, which hopefully didn’t include stripping the tops off of anymore women I didn’t know.<br/><br/>Yep, look out criminals of Brockton Bay, Ramona Cortez was coming for you.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Two</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>“Bye, Ramona,” Mom called from downstairs. “I’ll see you tonight!”<br/><br/>“Bye, Mom,” I replied, not glancing away from the computer screen as I shouted down the hallway. “Have fun at work!”<br/><br/>If Mom had anything to say to that, she didn’t say it loudly enough for me to hear. I did hear the front door slam and saw her going out to her car, though. She glanced up at my bedroom window and waved. I waved back and smiled.<br/><br/>Then, as she pulled away, I turned back to the computer. Was I on the right website? And if I was, was I on the right part of the website? I had never really been into capes that much beforehand, so I was trusting word of mouth that Parahumans Online was <em>the</em> biggest place for cape talk by a long shot. It was certainly big enough that I was getting lost trying to find something that might not be there.<br/><br/>Okay, maybe I <em>shouldn’t</em> be googling myself just to stroke my own ego, but I was. And boy, was my ego not getting a whole lot of love. There was nothing that I could find talking about my fight last evening with Circus. Not a whisper. Not even somebody talking about hearing some shouting.<br/><br/>Well, had there been anyone else around there but Circus and I? I couldn’t <em>remember</em> them being there. And I supposed Circus wasn’t going to talk about losing a fight and getting herself stripped naked. So, really, except for pissing off a lady with a knife, it was like it hadn’t even happened.<br/><br/>I frowned, slouching down in my chair. Okay, that was a <em>big</em> bust. I liked to think I wasn’t vain, even though I was objectively the hottest girl to ever walk the earth (I made a note to work that into a conversation with Kim, to see how hard she’d laugh). But it would be nice to get at least a little bit of credit and attention for what I was doing, keeping Brockton Bay safe.<br/><br/>Okay, so my next fight should either be around witnesses or with someone who was going to post a long, angry rant online about how they got defeated by the… the… I was going to need to come up with a name. And a costume.<br/><br/>So, who should that be? That was in Brockton Bay, obviously. The Nazis? Anything that fucked over <em>that</em> group was always a good idea, but even <em>I</em> knew that there were a <em>lot</em> of capes in that group. Too many to survive, maybe. The ABB? That might be a better idea. It was just, well, I hadn’t really been <em>close</em> to Mai before she had left school, but we had still talked and exchanged some laughs together. I really didn’t want to end up punching her out because she was a gangbanger now.<br/><br/>So who did that leave? I had no real idea of any of the names and faces of the collection of scum seeping through Brockton Bay. But I <em>did</em> have a computer with an internet connection. So that should be fixable. And, I supposed, I could poke around the parts of the city where thugs and criminals might hang out. So that would be the docks and such for the thugs, and The Towers and the high tech district for the criminals.<br/><br/>Oh, and make sure that I got to my job on time. Just a <em>minor</em> little concern.<br/><br/>Oh, and make sure that my powers hadn’t worn off during the night. <em>That</em> was a lovely little thought. I leaned back in my chair and stuck my hand out in front of me. Then I reconsidered the idea of figuring out how to summon a fireball inside of my bedroom. Or inside the house, for that matter.<br/><br/>A few minutes later, I was in the back yard, all five square inches of it. I nervously looked up at the windows of the neighboring houses. They <em>were</em> blank. And they belonged to people who had normal jobs and kids that were off at school, and not some retirees who had nothing better to do than sit at the window with a pair of binoculars. So I should be safe.<br/><br/>I made sure that the hose was plugged in for a <em>different</em> safety reason. Then I thrust my hand out, fingers pointing up towards the sky and palm facing away from me.<br/><br/>And fire came shooting out! It wasn’t very <em>much</em> fire and it evaporated before it reached the wooden boards of the perimeter fence, but I was still shooting fire!<br/><br/>“Yes!” I called out, jumping into the air and smiling like a look. “Oh baby, it’s working!”<br/><br/>I did it again and this time got a longer, more impressive burst of fire. Then I started thinking really hard about what I wanted Mom to come home to. She worked long, hard hours and coming back after a ten hour day to find out that I had somehow managed to burn the grass, fence or house down didn’t seem like a <em>great</em> welcome home surprise.<br/><br/>But Circus had shown off a lot more tricks than just fire. I ran through them, glancing around from time to time to make sure that nobody was watching. Yep, yep, yep. I still had that weird pocket dimension (and the candy bars and the like I had stuffed inside just to see how it worked), I was still a lot more coordinated and stronger and flexible than I had been. It seemed that I still had every single power she had shown off. And it had been over twelve hours and everything seemed just as strong as it had been.<br/><br/>Would they run out? At the twenty four hour mark would be the logical point, I supposed. Or after a week. Or when I got a new set of powers from someone else. Or when Circus sacrificed a chicken underneath a full moon. Or <em>whatever</em> the rules for this were. I had no idea and no way to find out. Except by going out and seeing, I supposed. Hopefully they wouldn’t suddenly vanish when I was fighting Giangator the Murder-Rapist.<br/><br/>Shrugging, I headed back inside. Either my powers would run out or they wouldn’t. There was no way to tell before it happened, so why bother myself and stress out over it? Instead, I should- I glanced at the clock and did some mental calculations. Yeah, I could spend twenty minutes or so driving around the neighborhood around Kit’s Katering before I needed to clock in. That place was rough enough that I should be able to pick up a clue or two about what I needed to know.<br/><br/>And even if I didn’t find anything, at least I could think about what my costume and my name was going to be. That was something I was going to need to figure out pretty soon.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>Three nights later, I was wandering around the area surrounding Howard Street. There had been an article in the paper about how crime-ridden this part of the city was, so it seemed that it was a good bet to finding another cape I could battle, and that would start the legend of Jester.<br/><br/>I still wasn’t entirely sold on the name, but it seemed to fit. I wasn’t wearing an actual jester costume, because that would be <em>expensive</em> and those long tails sticking off of my head seemed like the perfect thing to grab and use to throw me into the side of a building. But the <em>name</em> at, least, fit pretty well. Plus, it seemed like a great way to get Circus hopping mad and coming back for payback. And when she did, I’d make sure to have some people notice it.<br/><br/>And hopefully they wouldn’t just see a cape knocking around some girl who didn’t have powers. That wouldn’t exactly be a <em>great</em> look.<br/><br/>Also, I wasn’t able to think of <em>any</em> other name.<br/><br/>I patted the sides of my costume. It wasn’t much. At <em>all</em>, really. Just some brightly colored fabric I had found rummaging through my closet and a thrift store. But at least it fit well enough with the name of Jester. On top of that, I had thrown a cheap mask, one of the Greek ones I saw from time to time. The laughing one, not the crying one. It didn’t fit very well and it was kind of hard to see out of, but who had ever heard of a parahuman who wasn’t wearing a mask?<br/><br/>I whistled tunelessly to myself as I looked around the street I was on. This was supposed to be one of the spots where the Bridge Street Merchants hung out. And on Bridge Street as well, obviously, but I had already been there and all that had happened was some guy trying to give me a dollar to see what my show was.<br/><br/>I supposed that technically what I was going to do counted as street entertainment, but that didn’t mean I was going to take that sort of thing.<br/><br/>Where <em>were</em> the Merchants? Media had led me to believe that shortly after a scene cut, a small number of thugs would appear in front of the hero and charge them one by one, letting the main character show off his or her moves in a flashy manner. And all that had happened to me was getting some weird looks from the people walking along the sidewalk.<br/><br/>Then I heard a thump from a nearby alleyway. And then another thump. My curiosity piqued, I headed over there, wondering if this was the prelude to a fight. And if it was, who I would be fighting.<br/><br/>I poked my head around the corner and looked straight at something metal and shiny. I blinked as it moved. Then I looked up.<br/><br/>Oh shit. Oh <em>shit</em>.<br/><br/>It was- I couldn’t remember the stupid Viking names. It was one of the Nazi twins. The ones that grew to be thirty feet tall. And had weapons. And was looking at me.<br/><br/>I jumped backwards, heart pounding in my chest. Oh fuck shit, was this really happening right now? I was supposed to be fighting a flash in the pan group, some loser who had a worse power than Circus did and some goons straggling after him! Not somebody who could <em>step</em> on me.<br/><br/>And she was stepping out from the alleyway, her medieval armor shining in the street lights as <em>everything</em> hopped and jumped around from the force of her footsteps.<br/><br/>“Who are you?” She said, lowering her spear so the head (about as big as both my forearms pressed together) was pointing right at me. Shit, even a <em>glancing</em> blow from that thing would remove a limb. “Are you one of those degenerates that’s been polluting this part of town?”<br/><br/>I swallowed heavily, looking around. There were people watching. There was even one asshole taking pictures. Which meant that I couldn’t run away like I <em>really</em> wanted to. People would <em>see</em>. And my first introduction to the world of capery would be as the little bitch who turned around and ran as soon as she saw another cape.<br/><br/>Goddamnit, I was going to get my ass whipped in front of witnesses while my <em>win</em> had gone completely unnoticed. Okay, okay, I still had my powers. Maybe I could use Circus’s agility to duck and weave for long enough to start sipping from the giantess’s pool? Maybe that was how I would win, getting enough power from her to draw this fight out long enough that another hero could arrive and… either save me or help me.<br/><br/>“I’m, I’m,” I said, taking deep breaths and staring up (and up and up) at the giant blonde woman, “I’m Jester. And I’m going to cut you down to size.”<br/><br/>“Is that supposed to be banter?” She asked, swinging a backpack (pretty modern, actually, which really clashed with the whole Valkyrie thing she had going on) over her shoulders. “Fenja is going to get a kick out of hearing this.”<br/><br/>There was a pretty unpleasant smile on her face, underneath the metal helmet she wore. Like, <em>really</em> unpleasant. There was no way that she could tell I wasn’t white underneath the mask and the costume, so it seemed that she was just a <em>bitch</em>.<br/><br/>“I’m going to give you one final chance to stand down and let me take you to the cops,” I said, trying to sound more intimidating than the thirty-foot-tall woman with a spear. “Otherwise I’ll have to use force.”<br/><br/>That actually made her laugh, a great, booming sound. Her smile got <em>marginally</em> less nasty as she looked down at me, shaking her head, her blonde hair going to and fro. But she didn’t do what I had told her.<br/><br/>“Kid, either you’re an idiot or you’re a <em>young</em> idiot,” she said. “Tell you what, I’ll only put you in the hospital for the rest of the year instead of killing you. Now hold still.”<br/><br/>She lifted the spear and lashed forward and down. It was a <em>good</em> thing I had Circus’s powers because I wouldn’t possibly have dodged that otherwise. As it was, I managed to leap to the side, feeling the wave of wind from the spear pressing against my back like a hand. I swung around and threw out a bolt of fire at her.<br/><br/>I wasn’t sure if it would have really hurt even a normal person. I was pretty sure it evaporated before it even reached the metal armor protecting her lower legs. And even if it didn’t, she didn’t seem to feel a thing. She just wheeled around, her foot drawing back in a kick.<br/><br/>I managed to dodge that as well. In fact, I dropped straight to the ground and watched the boot pass a few inches overhead, slamming into a car and knocking it right into the center of the road. As I sprang to my feet, I could see that it was practically torn in two, the doors that had been kicked not so much dented as just plain <em>gone</em>.<br/><br/>I could feel my power drawing on hers, leeching off of her. It wasn’t going very <em>quickly</em> though. In fact, even though it seemed that every single breath was taking a full minute to complete, the power transfer was happening slower than it had with Circus.<br/><br/>I could only hope I would last long enough.<br/><br/>My enhanced dexterity (and sheer terror) was keeping me ahead of the blonde woman’s (Menja, I thought) spear and feet. Just barely, though, and I really wasn’t sure how long that would last for. She was a <em>good</em> fighter, at least when she was five times my height. I was barely getting the chance to do anything to her, and whenever I did land a punch or fireball, she didn’t seem to notice whatsoever.<br/><br/>My heart was pumping in my chest and my breath was coming in hard little pants. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep this up before I started to slow down. And then… yeah, getting caught by her did <em>not</em> sound like a good idea.<br/><br/>I wasn’t getting power from her fast enough. She wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down or shrinking. And even though I could <em>kind</em> of feel myself getting tougher, I didn’t think I was ever going to be tough enough to see if I could resist a thrust from that mammoth spear.<br/><br/>It was time for me to <em>run</em>. To get the hell out of here right now before she killed me. It was going to be a loss, sure, but at least it was after I had put up a (weak, worthless) fight instead of just running away as soon as I realized who I was facing.<br/><br/>The question was if she would <em>let</em> me get away. I couldn’t be the reason why she was here. That would have to be whatever was in the backpack. But would she see it that way, or had I pissed her off enough that she wanted to jump up and down on me repeatedly for defying her?<br/><br/>I glanced off to the side. There was the alleyway that she had come out of. And at the far end of it, I could see some cars whizzing by. And <em>above</em> me, I could see fire escapes, stuff that should slow her down if she tried to follow me at her current height.<br/><br/>“Eyes on me,” Menja grunted.<br/><br/>I whipped my head back to her, just in time to catch the butt of her spear in my stomach. And my chest. And my thighs. I went flying, traveling a good three yards or so before landing heavily on my side. I gasped and would have screamed if I had the breath in my lungs for it.<br/><br/>A single step was all it took for Menja to loom above me. She reversed her spear so that the razor sharp point was just a foot in front of my face. I swallowed, trying to scramble backwards and get away from that thing. I hit a mailbox.<br/><br/>“I’d say I’m going to teach you a lesson,” Menja said with a nasty smile as she adjusted her position, “but you’re not going to learn a single new thing ever again. It will just have to be something other people pick up on.”<br/><br/>I almost pissed myself in fear as I tried to think of a way to get out of this. There was no possible way I could outrun her, not down a street with nothing overhead. Maybe-<br/><br/>Menja thrust forward. I pushed myself to the side, rolling out of the way. I heard concrete crack and shatter behind me as I pulled myself up using the building I had fetched up against.<br/><br/>I blinked, realizing that I couldn’t see Menja’s face. It was hidden behind a swarm of- where those <em>bugs</em>? I thought they were. Swarming all over her helmet, in a group of what had to be thousands of them.<br/><br/>I had no idea what the <em>hell</em> was going on, where these bugs had come from, why they were doing this, what any of it meant. No, I knew what it meant. I had a chance to get the <em>hell</em> out of here and I was going to take it.<br/><br/>I turned around and <em>ran</em>. I didn’t care that there were still people looking down through the windows and a good distance away. I was getting out of here before Menja got rid of those bugs.<br/><br/>I turned down an alleyway and kept on running, my feet pounding along the surface. There was another, smaller alleyway that led off of it, so I took it. After a few more minutes of running, I stopped, looking over my shoulder. Nothing. Nothing in front of me, either.<br/><br/>Fuck, I had made it out. Oh thank you God, I had thought I was going to <em>die</em> back there. A fucking giantess was <em>not</em> who I needed to fight on my very second night out, thank you very much. If it hadn’t been for… whatever the hell that had been, I would have been <em>dead</em>.<br/><br/>And what the hell <em>had</em> that been, anyway? One minute, I was about to die, the next a swarm of insects appeared and saved me in the very <em>nick</em> of time. It was another hero, obviously. But why had they waited? Were they the swarm, or were they controlling the swarm? My mind was buzzing with a bunch of questions as I tried to get over what had just happened to me.<br/><br/>I sat down heavily in a recessed doorway. I placed a hand against my chest. I could still feel my heart pounding away and my throat seemed as dry as the Sahara. I unhooked my water bottle from my belt and sneaked in up underneath my mask, dislodging it a bit. The water felt <em>good</em> going down my throat.<br/><br/>Was I up for some more fighting? No, no I was <em>not</em>. I lifted the hand holding the bottle and watched it. The bottle was shaking around and through the clear plastic walls, I could see the water bobbling and rippling back and forth. If I went in for another fight like that, I was going to get creamed, no matter who it was.<br/><br/>Had I gotten <em>anything</em> out of the fight? I paused, hearing some sirens. Okay, I was going to say that I had delayed Menja long enough for the cops or the government heroes to show up and finish the job. Whether they did or didn’t, that wasn’t <em>my</em> problem because I had given it everything I had and then some.<br/><br/>And what about my power? I knew I had gotten <em>something</em> from Menja, but just how much had it been? I looked around again. There weren’t any signs of life besides some moths fluttering around a dimly-flickering light above the door on the other side of the alley. Okay, so if I somehow ended up busting out of my clothes trying to replicate Menja’s growing trick, nobody was going to see.<br/><br/>Until I had to run back naked to my scooter and drive home. The bikini in my closet showed that I didn’t mind showing off my body, but there was a time and a place for that sort of thing.<br/><br/>After a second’s thought, I took off my mask and outer layer of clothing. I almost instantly started to freeze, hopping around in just my underwear. So this was going to be a really <em>fast</em> test.<br/><br/>I closed my eyes and focused on my power. Okay, Menja’s power had a different taste to it than Circus’s did. And was a lot smaller. It was like one cup of red liquid compared to three cups of blue in a five gallon bucket, though that wasn’t the <em>best</em> analogy for what I was feeling inside of myself. I wondered if I could blend them together. Something to focus on when I wasn’t half-naked in a dirty alleyway.<br/><br/>I drew on Menja’s power. And it worked. I opened my eyes to see the alleyway starting to shrink around me. I smiled and almost cheered. Only the cold and the embarrassment of anyone coming to see me stopped me. I was doing it! I was growing!<br/><br/>And as soon as I thought that, I stopped. I frowned and strained and grimaced, trying to get myself to grow some more. But I couldn’t. It seemed that I was stuck at, oh, seven had a half feet. Which was still <em>cool</em>, it was still taller than I had ever thought I would be. But it was a far cry from that blonde Nazi towering over small buildings.<br/><br/>Also, my clothes were still fitting me. Well my underwear was. My actual costume was still sized for a girl five feet and two inches tall. But that was an easy enough fix.<br/><br/>A minute later, I was dressed again and my normal height. I sighed, smiling. Okay, that fight hadn’t gone perfectly. A long way from perfectly, actually. But I had survived it and even gotten a new power out of the deal. So it wasn’t <em>all</em> bad.<br/><br/>And now it was time to go home. Have dinner with Mom, lie about what I had done during the day, and then, oh man, I bet I would find something about me online <em>now</em>, wouldn’t I?<br/><br/>Well, whatever was posted would look better with some tacos inside of me. I started heading down the alley to where I had left my scooter.<br/><br/>Tonight could have gone a <em>lot</em> better. But I was going to focus on what had gone right instead of the many, many things that had gone wrong.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>It was the weekend, which meant that I could easily claim I was going out to party with my friends and Mom wouldn’t say anything. And who knew? Maybe tomorrow night, I actually would spend time with them, having some booze I was technically too young for, looking at cute guys and hot girls, all that sort of fun stuff.<br/><br/>But tonight was dedicated to something a lot more important. Redeeming the name of Jester.<br/><br/>I should have known that people would side with the pretty blonde girl with the huge rack (about the size of a small car, in fact) who had won the fight instead of the no-name chick hiding almost everything behind a mask who had run away. But it had still come as a rude surprise to see the page and a half of conversation the fight had started. At least some of the commenters had gotten a bit too explicit about what they’d like to have Menja do to them, so I had gotten <em>some</em> satisfaction in reading the redtext as they got booted out of the thread.<br/><br/>But I still hadn’t made a name for myself. At least, not a name that I wanted to be associated with me. So that was why I was out here tonight. I still had Circus’s powers, almost a week after getting every last drop of them. And I had a tiny bit of Menja’s power. So I could still go out and do <em>something</em> to show the city that I wasn’t just a bad joke.<br/><br/>And if I couldn’t, then I’d just have to retire Jester and come up with a <em>new</em> name and costume for myself. And it wasn’t as if losing <em>this</em> outfit was going to be a big loss.<br/><br/>I was wandering around the edge of the city, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. The Docks proper were a bit to the north of me, but there was still some maritime infrastructure around here. Or at least buildings that had anchors and seagulls painted on them. They were all closed up and I wasn’t going to go knock a window open just to satisfy my curiosity.<br/><br/>I was starting to think that this wasn’t a good place to hang around in if you wanted to fight crime and make a name for yourself. There was nothing going on here. Some cars zipping along the main road, but mostly? A big fat load of <em>nothing</em>. I was getting bored and was five minutes away from heading back to my scooter and going back to the Bridge Street area. Surely I couldn’t run into Menja <em>again</em>, could I? My luck wasn’t that bad right?<br/><br/>As I thought that over, I glanced up at the crescent moon and sighed. I could be getting a buzz on right now. Or talking with Mom. Or doing <em>something</em> with my time besides just standing around looking like an idiot.<br/><br/>Screw it, the talk online about how this was a hot spot of crime were clearly talking out of their ass. Or if they weren’t, then at least there was nothing happening on Friday night. I should go find a bar and break up a fight or something. That would be a better use of my time.<br/><br/>Something streaked by overhead. I frowned, narrowing my eyes. If I hadn’t already been looking up in the sky, I would have missed it entirely. I tracked it as it flew out over the bay, before turning back to me.<br/><br/>It was a cape. Had to be. I ran over the list of flying capes in my mind. New Wave was the only one that came to mind, though I wasn’t sure how many members of the team could actually fly. Actually, I wasn’t sure how many members on the team there were anyway. Six? I thought there might be more than that, but I wasn’t really <em>sure</em>.<br/><br/>The cape got closer. I could tell that they were a she. Underneath the mask, I sighed. Two for two on meeting blonde capes. Heck, I hadn’t seen Circus’s hair, so maybe it was three for three. At least we were both heroes, so this shouldn’t end up being a fight. Maybe she could tell me where an actual fight was.<br/><br/>By now she was only a few yards away and slowing down. I could see long blonde hair trailing out from behind her head, and a sense of confidence and authority that made me feel a bit funny inside.<br/><br/>Wait, shit, I knew this one. It was Glory Girl, aka Victoria Dallon. Kit had been reading a magazine article a few weeks ago about her and sighing over what it would be like to be able to fly around and that she’d take being a teenager again if it meant having superpowers. She could, what could she do? Flight, obviously. Um, super strength, that too. And I was sure that there was some other stuff, but it <em>really</em> wasn’t coming to mind. The article had been about what it was like going to high school and everyone knowing she was a cape anyway, not about any hidden weaknesses she had.<br/><br/>I backed up a few steps as she stopped in front of me, hovering a foot or so off of the ground. Even at night, her white costume shone brightly, catching the light coming from a building’s CLOSED sign. The red shade that gave her costume seemed kind of ominous.<br/><br/>“Circus,” Glory Girl said, cracking her knuckles and smiling nastily. “What a <em>pleasure</em> it is to run into you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="messageContent"><p></p><div><p><b>Grit Chapter Three</b></p></div><br/>I swallowed as I stared at Glory Girl. Oh no. On no, no, no. This had to be a mistake. This <em>was</em> a mistake. A really, really big mistake. I wasn’t Circus! But how was I going to convince her of that?<p>“You-you’ve got the wrong girl,” I said, backing up and feeling myself starting to go weak at the knees. “I’m not Circus, I’m,” oh shit, this wasn’t going to sound convincing at <em>all</em>, “Jester.”</p><p>“How damn dumb do you think I am?” Glory Girl said, an insulted look of anger passing over her face. “That’s the laziest name change I’ve <em>ever</em> heard of.” She cracked her knuckles and twisted her neck. “But you’ll have plenty of time to think of a better one in a Protectorate cell.”</p><p>“Wait!” I squeaked, backing up and looking for some source of help. But there was <em>nobody</em> around here. I couldn’t even see any security cameras. “I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong person.”</p><p>“Yes, yes, yes, the blonde bimbo is such an idiot she’ll believe anything she’s told,” Glory Girl shot back, starting to sound pretty pissed. She started to rise up, going level with the roof of the store right next to me. “Save it for someone who cares.”</p><p>Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit a brick I was so <em>screwed</em>. There was no way I was outrunning someone who could <em>fly</em>. And I wasn’t going to talk her down. And if I agreed to come in and surrender to the cops… would they believe me anymore than Glory Girl did? Especially if she was in the room as well, banging the table and declaring me to be a villain? Who were they going to believe the pretty white girl they knew or the biracial woman neither of them had ever seen before.</p><p>I had to fight her, then. Right. I just couldn’t see any other way out of this. And I still <em>really</em> didn’t like the idea. Fighting Glory Girl… I wasn’t a villain, obviously. But was fighting one of the icons of Brockton Bay really something that was going to change people’s minds about me, make them see me a Jester the hero and not Jester the semi-competent villain?</p><p>I didn’t have any more time to think things over. Glory Girl was coming down at me, one foot extended in a wicked looking kick. I flung myself to the side, feeling my feet almost going from underneath me as I got out of the way. I barely had time to breathe as she flew at me again, defying <em>everything</em> I knew about physics in a mid-air turn that was practically at ninety degrees on a dime.</p><p>“Please,” I said, throwing my hands up as I glanced around, making sure I wasn’t backing up against a wall or something. “I’m not Circus! Just let me prove it, you stupid- gah!”</p><p>I ducked out of the way of another punch and threw one of my own. It was a sloppy, badly-aimed punch and it barely even brushed against her hair.</p><p>At least I had the sense to follow it up with a bolt of fire. It didn’t seem like it was very <em>hot</em> fire but at least it made Glory Girl flinch out of the way a bit and gave me some breathing space. It wasn’t much space, but at least it gave me a bit of time to think things over to try and convince her to not beat me up and arrest me.</p><p>“Listen, I’m not Circus!” I said again, trying to get it through her head. “I can prove it, too!” I jumped back, managing to <em>mostly</em> dodge the blows that were coming my way. The ones that landed still hurt like a <em>bitch</em>, though. It was a lot more pain than I had ever felt before. But it still wasn’t quite enough to put me down, even though I’d never been punched this hard in my life. Was it thanks to Browbeat, just a little sip off of his powers that was keeping me on my feet? “Can Circus do this?”</p><p>I called on Menja’s, Fenja’s, whoever the hell it was, power and shot up a good two and a half feet. That made Glory Girl blink a bit before a contemptuous look settled back on her features. I tried to ignore it.</p><p>“See?” I asked. “I just have Circus’s powers and Menja’s!” Or maybe Fenja’s, but that kind of detail was <em>not</em> needed right now. “I stole it from them, that’s why I can get this tall!”</p><p>“Right, right,” Glory Girl said, nodding, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because what’s easier to believe? You actually being Circus and just having another trick up your sleeve I haven’t heard of, or you’re some new cape that somehow stole Menja’s height and, let’s see Lung’s pyrokinesis and a bunch of other stuff, right?”</p><p>Fuck it, was there <em>anything</em> I could say to her that was going to get through and make her realize I wasn’t the bad guy here? If so, it wasn’t coming to mind as I kept on scrambling backwards, thankful again and again for Circus’s enhanced reactions that let me stay out of the way of what Glory Girl was throwing at me. It was a bit easier than fighting with Menja, since at least Glory Girl didn’t have an extra twenty four feet on me as she tried to stamp me into the asphalt.</p><p>I was still barely staying ahead and only managing that much by using my fire abilities to put up walls that Glory Girl wasn’t took keen to fly through. Of course, if she decided to start grabbing newsstands and ripping them out of the ground and throwing them at me, I’d have to see just how good my dodging game really was.</p><p>She got in close, swinging an understated punch that still left a whole lot of moving air behind it. I responded and actually managed to land a solid hit on her side. It was like punching a wall. There wasn’t the slightest bit of give.</p><p>Until there was. My eyes widened as all of a sudden, my fist actually moving past the barrier. But it was over almost before it began and I had already spent all of my force on the initial punch anyway. Maybe if I could do a one-two punch… yeah, maybe if she was nice and obliging and held stock still in front of me I would be able to manage that.</p><p>The punches from Glory Girl hurt, but they didn’t hurt as much as they had at first. The adrenaline running through me? Or was it because I was so much taller than I had been? Hadn’t there been something about the Nazi twins becoming even more resilient than their size would suggest? If so, that was keeping my ass out of the fire <em>big time</em>. Because I wasn’t dodging all of Glory Girl’s punches. How could I, when I was an eight-feet tall, landlocked fighter, and she was zipping around me like a hummingbird on crack?</p><p>I was only landing the occasional punch. From time to time I felt that weird cracking feeling as if the unbreakable glass was vanishing, but it never seemed to affect her. But she was landing hits on me, and even with Menja’s stolen powers, they were still adding up, taking their toll and wearing me down.</p><p>Holy crap, I was <em>way</em> out of my league. How was I supposed to beat her? I honestly felt like pissing my pants as I tried to get out of her way, her fists flying and sending jolts of pain through me whenever they connected. Even though I was doing better than when I had fought Menja, I was still feeling like I was in a ton more trouble.</p><p>Okay, I wasn’t outfighting Glory Girl and my powers weren’t any match for hers. Unless. I got her own powers. That was the <em>only</em> way I could see myself not waking up in a jail cell with a cast on three different limbs.</p><p>I fought for space, getting as far back from Glory Girl as I could so that my power would have some time and space to actually start draining away at her… everything.</p><p>Wait, no, I didn’t need <em>everything</em>. I just needed some way to get her to stop fighting me. Her super strength? Yes, punching her would work out just fine, I was sure. That was the traditional way to end a fight, wasn’t it? Punch the other person so hard they didn’t get up.</p><p>Her flight? Sure, if it worked for me! Get the <em>hell</em> out of here. She would be able to call it a win, just like I called my fight with Circus a win, but I didn’t care. I’d give her a win if it meant that I didn’t lose.</p><p>Her invulnerability? Hell yeah, I’d take the ability to not have punches hurt me and, even better, for Glory Girl to have to start fighting a lot more carefully because I could hurt her.</p><p>Her emotional aura! It was like a light was dawning in my head and a blessed wave of release swept over me as the answer appeared. That was what was making this such an awful fight, keeping me scared and off-balanced. She was blasting me with her famous emotional aura, making the waves of fear and terror and despair come crashing through me. But if I could steal that, it would stop working on me and might start working on her. And that way, maybe she would actually <em>listen</em> to me. Or even just run away. I was fine with <em>either</em>.</p><p>The fight had gone on for long enough that I had already started to absorb some of her powers. But it wasn’t much, just a tiny little trickle when I needed a flood. I didn’t know what I was grabbing it but I didn’t care. Just so long as I could get something, anything that would win me this fight.</p><p>It was kind of hard to grab at Glory Girl’s powers. Especially since I was only grabbing at just one of them. It was kind of like trying to hold onto just one soaped up cat in an entire group of them. But I could still feel it starting to work.</p><p>Would it work quickly enough? I hoped so, because there were <em>zero</em> other options open for me. It was getting this or getting smeared across the pavement the next time Glory Girl came in for one of her bone-breaking charges.</p><p>“Wait,” Glory Girl said, her face, already worked up in anger and battle lust, twisting a bit into puzzlement. “Are you doing something to me?”</p><p>“I said I could take powers,” I replied, panting and glad that she was talking instead of fighting. “Didn’t you think I was telling the truth?”</p><p>And if I had been telling the truth about that, then wouldn’t it follow that I was telling the truth about not being Circus and being a hero. But I didn’t quite have the breath to point that out and it was <em>obvious</em> that Glory Girl wasn’t going to listen to me. Not until she had no choice but to do so.</p><p>The power, whatever it was, was starting to unfold inside of me. I still couldn’t tell what it was, but I was going to take it and use it. As soon as I could, because right now it was only kind of… half-baked wasn’t the best way to describe it but I wasn’t going to spend any time sitting down and thinking things over.</p><p>I just needed to keep on top of this for a few more minutes. Just a little while longer and I would have it and could use it. And then, maybe, I could win this fight.</p><p>“You stinking bitch,” Glory Girl snarled as she flew at me, unleashing a flurry of blows that rocked my head to the side and made me see stars, “you think you can get away with stealing my powers from me?” She was almost shouting and her face was red. “I’ll see you dead before I let you take that away from me!”</p><p>I believed her. She looked <em>pissed</em>. I wasn’t sure if I had ever seen anyone this mad before. I was getting pretty mad myself. Why was she so goddamn <em>dense</em>? Did she refuse to listen to anything anyone said, or was I a special case?</p><p>I just needed to make her sit down and pay attention. Somehow. I let loose with another flurry of punches that Glory Girl managed to dodge <em>far</em> too easily and didn’t manage to get out of the way of her return volley. That <em>hurt</em>. That hurt like a bitch and a half and I hissed through my teeth as I felt the pain growing inside of me. But it wasn’t enough to put me down.</p><p>And the power I had grabbed from her had unfurled inside of me. I didn’t have <em>time</em> to figure out what it was and it didn’t much matter anyway. I had it, that was the important thing. Glory Girl had it as well, because I hadn’t completely finished draining her, but I would take what I could get. And, heh, give plenty back.</p><p>It took me a minute to figure out how to make the power work, a minute I almost didn’t get as Glory Girl kept up the assault, her face a twisted mask of rage as she turned my torso into hamburger with more punches and kicks and strikes. God damn, how did she have this much energy? And this much skill?</p><p>But then I figured out what I was doing and let the power blossom. And <em>literally</em> saw red, a pulsing, beating tint to my vision as I stared at the smug, stupid bitch who wasn’t fucking <em>listening</em> to me!</p><p>She looked just as mad as I did, though she had a whole hell of a lot less to be mad <em>over</em>. She wasn’t the one getting hounded by some teenage glamour model! Oh, I was going to give her a <em>damn</em> good seeing-to.</p><p>Letting out an incoherent bellow of rage, I flew at her, my feet pounding against the pavement as I drew my arm back in a wide, telegraphed strike. She managed to dodge it with ease, but the trail of fire following it still washed against her. She didn’t cry out or give any sign it was affecting her. But it still blinded her enough that my follow up knee to the stomach caught her. That broke the forcefield or whatever the hell it was and made her start to fly back, getting out of range.</p><p>Well, let her. I was <em>still</em> going to drain that cheerleader dry of every single drop she had and then <em>she</em> could see what it was like to be pushed around by someone with a power set that just couldn’t be beat.</p><p>“Do you know what’s going to happen to you?” Glory Girl asked. “I’m going to make <em>damn</em> sure you can’t steal or hurt anyone ever again and then I’m going to get my mom to dump you in the deepest, darkest cell in the entire East Coast.”</p><p>“No you won’t, because I. AM. A. FUCKING. HERO!” I shouted at the top of my lungs before catching Glory Girl in a sideswipe. It knocked her into a building, though not nearly hard enough, since she just shot off along the ground, maybe an inch above the asphalt, not even phased.</p><p>“You think I’m going to start believing a lie just because I hear it often enough?” Glory Girl responded. “I’m <em>blonde,</em> not dumb!”</p><p>And then she was responding with a punch of her own, one that caught me right in the stomach. I grunted and doubled over and <em>still</em> managed to bring my hands down on her back in a double-punch.</p><p>I was still draining powers from her. Or one power, at least. I didn’t know what power it was, but I didn’t <em>need</em> to know. Whatever it was, it was going to make sure that this battle was over as soon as I took it, one way or another. How could it when I would either be able to beat her if I got her strength or invulnerability or run away if I got her flight?</p><p>And Glory Girl could tell that I was taking it from her. And man, was she pissed <em>off</em> about it. I had never seen anyone being this damn good in a fight, rocketing all over the place, slamming into me again and again. If it hadn’t been for Menja’s and Browbeat’s powers (faint as the latter was) I just wouldn’t have a <em>chance</em>.</p><p>Finally, the power was ready enough inside of me for me to use it. I didn’t wait for even a single second. I just lashed out with it, doing my best to put a stop to this whole damn thing, right here, right now. And it was the perfect chance, right as Glory Girl stopped in midair, looking puzzled.</p><p>With a snarl of triumph, I got Glory Girl <em>good</em>. There was a snapping sound as I smashed into her side and sent her flying, bouncing along the concrete over and over again until she fetched up against a wall. And then she started to scream.</p><p>My eyes got wide as I listened to the sound. It wasn’t one of anger, just one of <em>pain</em>. Real bad pain. I swallowed, the red vanishing from my vision and all of the anger I had been feeling draining away like a plug had been pulled from a basin.</p><p>Now that I was calmer, I could see that Glory Girl’s leg was looking bad. <em>Really</em> bad, bent the wrong way, at an angle legs just shouldn’t go at. I swallowed, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach with worry and guilt. Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. What had I just done?</p><p>I started towards her, my gait unsteady as the strength seemed to go right out of my legs. She saw me approaching and shied away, suddenly looking less like an invincible bitch who didn’t listen to reason and more like a scared girl two or three years younger than me, racked with pain.</p><p>“Oh fuck,” Glory Girl asked, fumbling with her belt and pulling out her phone. “Don’t you come near me!” She barked, still managing to sound a bit intimidating even with the pain and fear in her voice. She hit a button on her phone, almost fumbling it. I swallowed, seeing blood starting to pool underneath her. “Amy!” She screamed into the phone. “I need you, I need everyone!” She glared at me. “I’m at the boat shop just north of the public boat launch!” Underneath her anger, I could see tears forming in her eyes and starting to run down her cheeks.</p><p>I hesitated. Her sister was Panacea, right, the healer? While I couldn’t do a thing for a broken leg except make everything a lot worse. And that was assuming Glory Girl would let me touch her after I- after I-</p><p>I turned and ran, feeling sick to my stomach. What the fuck had I just done? I hadn’t met to hurt her! Not like that! I just wanted to get her to leave me alone and now her leg was almost twisted right off and it was because of <em>me</em> and-and-.</p><p>I turned the corner. I didn’t want to look at what I had done. And I didn’t want to still be here when the rest of New Wave showed up. There was no way they were going to be more reasonable than Glory Girl, not when they could see their family member bleeding out with a broken leg. That <em>I</em> had done, in a single fucking moment.</p><p>I tugged at my mask, feeling my throat constrict and a wave of something I didn’t even want to think about suddenly rising up my throat. I leaned against a wall and vomited, the awful, acidic taste covering my tongue and almost hitting my shoes. Oh fuck, what had I just done? Was she going to be okay? Glory Girl was a bitch but I didn’t want to <em>hurt</em> her. Just scare her off, get her to go away, not leave her with a broken leg that was bleeding</p><p>I staggered deeper into the night, heading for my scooter. I was done. I was done for tonight. I wasn’t going to do anything more than head home and cry myself to sleep. What if that had happened to <em>me</em>? I hadn’t punched Glory Girl any harder than she was punching me, so if she had done that to me and I hadn’t been tough enough to take what I couldn’t dodge… That thought added a whole new layer of awful to everything I was thinking about.</p><p>And now that the fight was over, I could feel some <em>serious</em> aches and pains forming. Ow. Ow, ow, <em>ow</em>. All the rush of a fight was draining out of my body, leaving me feeling like I had just been put through the wringer, even more than I had been fighting Menja.</p><p>Oh fuck, I was already cramping up all <em>over</em>. What was it going to be like tomorrow when the stiffness really set in? Was I even going to be able to move? Or was I going to overdose on aspirin?</p><p>I needed to go find and drain a healer, I realized. Lung, maybe? Hah, yeah right, and end up charbroiled for my troubles. Also, even if I did manage that, I’d probably end up burning or tearing through my clothes every time I tried that. I could remember having a good laugh with my high school friends over how the news had obviously edited footage of Lung as he transformed so that they could still show him before ten o’clock.</p><p>And then… Othala, or whatever her name was. Oh yes, taking a piece from <em>that</em> racist bitch would be a <em>pleasure</em>. And who else was there in the city that could heal? Panacea of course, but if I tried to steal powers from a hero, and <em>especially</em> from another member of New Wave, then I was <em>toast</em>. Nobody was ever going to believe I was a hero, no matter what I did.</p><p>God, I needed to buckle down and do some research. Maybe <em>that</em> was tomorrow’s game plan, since I wouldn’t be leaving my bedroom without getting as high as a kite on painkillers. And it would give the heat some time to die down.</p><p>I was sure that I would still be able to prove that I was a hero. I would just need to wait a little while before going out again. And this time I would make sure that I obviously and publicly took down a <em>villain</em>.</p><p>Oh <em>God</em>, why had I parked my scooter this far away? I was checking my back every five seconds, worried that I was going to see a light in the sky as the rest of New Wave arrived to help their teammate and then rip me to little, tiny pieces for what I had done. In the sky…</p><p>Could I fly? That would almost make tonight worth it. I thought of the sound Glory Girl’s leg had made as it broke and shivered. No, nothing could make <em>that</em> worth it. But being able to fly would at least make things less horribly crappy.</p><p>And I couldn’t. I clenched and I strained and I racked my power, looking for something that would send me through the sky like a jet. But there was nothing. I was stuck on foot, just like I always had been. At least that meant that Glory Girl still had <em>something</em>. Maybe she wouldn’t be as mad at me now as she would have been?</p><p>Yeah, and maybe horses would fly. I winced at that and at the pain that was still running through me, making me start to hobble along as I tried to get to the alley I had left my scooter in.</p><p>This wasn’t how I wanted my first meeting with another hero to go like. Not at all.<br/></p><div><p><b>***</b></p></div>Taylor sighed as she idly brushed some hair out of her face. Just a few more hours of school. Just a few more. And at least while she <em>was</em> here, she was getting to spend an almost happy time in the computer room, her assignments already done, leaving her free to goof around on the web.<p>Although it was probably more accurate to call it research than goofing around. After all, where else was Taylor going to find out about that girl she had helped against the Empire 88?</p><p>Taylor wondered what the girl was like. Brave, obviously, if she was going around picking fights with the Empire. That was something <em>Taylor</em> sure wasn’t going to do, and she liked to think of herself as… well, not as a coward, at any rate.</p><p>Ah, so the small, online-only article about the fight between Menja and whoever the other girl had been was here. Taylor nodded as she read over it. It wasn’t more than a short paragraph in length, not saying much more than that Menja and an unknown parahuman had fought and where and that the unknown cape had run off. It didn’t even mention Taylor, although she had done little enough in the fight that probably only the other capes were the only ones who knew she had done anything at all.</p><p>There wasn’t any more talk on Parahumans Online. Someone had posted the article, and that was <em>it</em>. No comments and just over a hundred views. Taylor sighed in disappointment. She had been expecting something a bit… more. She wasn’t sure what and it wouldn’t have been about her, anyway. But it still would have been nice to see.</p><p>Taylor clicked back to the main Brockton Bay board and gave the top threads a quick look for anything interesting. Wait, a new villain? Maybe that was someone that Taylor could bring down and make a name for herself.</p><p>She clicked on it and tapped the desk impatiently as she waited for it to load. So… late last night at the waterfront, Glory Girl had fought an unknown cape and… gotten crippled? Taylor’s eyebrows lifted and then she shrugged. Well, being a cape <em>was</em> dangerous. That was why she hadn’t gone out yet, not until her costume was ready.</p><p>News about a minor celebrity like Glory Girl losing a fight, and losing it pretty badly, was getting a lot more attention than the fight with Menja. Taylor quickly started scrolling through the comments, relying on them to fill her in instead of the actual news article.</p><p>The villain was a woman, probably young… and she had fire powers. Taylor swallowed, an uncomfortable weight settling in her stomach as a suspicion started to crystallize in her mind. She scrolled back up to the first post and clicked on the news article.</p><p>That didn’t have a <em>ton</em> of details, but what it did sure did sound familiar. Someone agile and throwing around fire and, of course, wearing a Greek comedy mask. That was a pretty good fit. Which was bad. Which was <em>really</em> bad.</p><p>Taylor could feel sweat breaking out all over her body as she stared at the screen. The girl she had helped a few days ago was being called a villain now. Why? Because she had gotten into a fight with Glory Girl, obviously. But why had the fight started? Had she been doing a crime or something? Trying to rob a store? Mug people?</p><p>Taylor’s skill with figuring out what people were talking about with her bugs was bad. Bad to the point where it could hardly be called a skill at all. But she had still been close enough to the fight between the girl and Menja that she had at least been able to see body language. And it <em>looked</em> like the girl had been taking a generally heroic stance. Not trying to shake Menja down or scare her off of the Merchant’s territory. That was why Taylor had intervened, because she thought she was helping save a fellow hero’s life.</p><p>Had she been wrong? Or was this girl being falsely accused? Or had something terrible happened that Taylor didn’t know about? Well, she <em>did</em> know one thing. She knew that she didn’t know nearly enough. And that she was going to have to change that, as soon as possible.</p><p>Taylor leaned back in her seat and started to think <em>hard</em>. She was going to have to find this girl and talk to her. The girl <em>should</em> be willing to listen to her. After all, if she <em>wasn’t</em> willing to talk to the girl who had obviously saved her life, then she would just <em>have</em> to be a villain, right? And one way or another, that would settle the question, pretty clearly.</p><p>Right. Taylor Hebert had her very first mission.</p></div><div class="threadmarker_nav_bottom">
  <p> </p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="messageContent">
  <p><br/>“See you tomorrow, Mom,” I called out as I clattered down the stairs, wrapping my coat around me.</p>
  <p>Mom looked up from her spot on the couch, watching TV. She stood up and walked over to me, wrapping me in a quick hug before putting her hands on my shoulders. She looked me up and down before sighing. But then she smiled, which helped to take the sting out of it.</p>
  <p>“Have fun clubbing, Ramona,” Mom said. “And stay <em>safe</em>, okay?”</p>
  <p>“Don’t worry, Mom,” I said, opening the front door and grinning. “Dying’s the last thing I’ll do.”</p>
  <p>I shut the door before I could hear Mom’s groan at that. Chuckling, I got onto my scooter and headed down the street, giving one last wave back to the house as I left. Then I focused on the road.</p>
  <p>A pair of clients at Kit’s Katering had been talking about some nightclub called the Palanquin. It sounded fun enough that I was going to go hit it up and blow off some stress. And who knew? I might get <em>really</em> lucky and find someone hot to spend the night with. And even if I didn’t, some drinks, some dancing, spending time with people, that sounded fun and a nice way to relax.</p>
  <p>Because man, I needed to relax. I might not have <em>added</em> to my stress (and guilt) since that night at the waterfront, but that didn’t mean it was going away, either. I had stayed home every night since I had maimed Glory Girl, not able to bring myself to go out as Jester again, just in case I ended up hurting someone else who didn’t deserve it.</p>
  <p>I shivered underneath my helmet as I tried not to think about the sound Glory Girl’s bones had made. Did even people who <em>did</em> deserve to go to jail, like the E88 deserve to have that happen to them? I just wasn’t sure yet.</p>
  <p>For a while, I had thought about turning myself in. I had really hurt another woman who was just trying to do the right thing. Just because she hadn’t listened and was healed by now wasn’t an excuse. But then I had seen the news about Canary on her fanpage. And that… I didn’t want to go to jail, obviously. But I would if it meant fixing what I had done. But going to the <em>Birdcage</em>? That wasn’t something to make people better. That was just them getting rid of you. I didn’t think what I had done was bad enough to warrant that, but I hadn’t thought that what Canary had done was bad enough to be put in the <em>Birdcage</em> either.</p>
  <p>Ugh, and now I was getting depressed all over again. I tried to focus on the club, dancing and swaying and being around plenty of people. That helped a bit. At least it helped to get my mind off of the fact that there was never going to be another Bad Canary album and onto how I had lied to Mom about falling down the stairs while she had been gone when I saw her the morning after.</p>
  <p>That had <em>still</em> almost ended up with Mom insisting on taking me to the hospital, especially since I had already called Kit to tell her I wasn’t coming into work. I had been forced to talk <em>fast</em> to make sure that Mom thought it wasn’t that serious and that some aspirin and bed rest would be all I need. It had still been a close thing and if she had actually touched any of the many sore spots on my body… yeah, that wouldn’t have been good.</p>
  <p>But she hadn’t and I had spent the entire day in my bed, trying to sleep my way through the pain as Browbeat’s power worked its magic on me. That hadn’t been a fun day, especially since I hadn’t been able to distract myself with anything but the thought of what had done the previous night. And doubly especially because I was pretty sure I had drained the power down to the dregs healing me up. I sure wasn't bulking up anymore when I tried to call on the power.</p>
  <p>Luckily, the massive manhunt for the evil fiend who had maimed Glory Girl didn’t materialize like I had been expecting it to. I still thought that Jester was pretty much finished as an identity, though. The police might not be doing door-to-door searches, but there was still a listing of Jester as a dangerous villain.</p>
  <p>In addition to turning myself in, I had seriously considered just giving up the whole cape business entirely and not leaving the house except to go to work. But that didn’t quite sit right with me and anyway, I had been getting <em>really</em> antsy lately. So here I was, going off to enjoy myself for the first time in almost a week or so.</p>
  <p>In just another twenty minutes of driving, I ended up at the Palanquin. There was already a line of people waiting in front of the door as I looked for a place to leave my scooter. I took off my helmet and jacket, smoothed down my best (and only) clubbing outfit and headed towards the back of the line.</p>
  <p>In a lot less time than I had thought, I was inside, looking around. It was a club, alright. A dance floor on the ground floor, with a bar off to the side. A balcony wrapping around the entire perimeter of the building, looking down at the floor. A staircase with a big, burly man in a black shirt standing in front of it. It was pretty much the picture of a club.</p>
  <p>And I was going to have fun in it. I headed towards the dance floor, looking at the sea of people my age bumping and shaking and grinding, all of them having a good time. I was going to get some of that, too.</p>
  <p>And I <em>did</em>. There was something pretty relaxing about dancing, throwing my body from side to side, letting the music wash over me and having my body doing the thinking instead of my head. I could feel the stress draining out of me.</p>
  <p>To be replaced by fatigue after half an hour or so, because dancing <em>was</em> exercise. But that could be solved, too. I headed off the dance floor and sat down on a stool next to the bar. I paid for a drink (and <em>man</em>, with the prices in here, whoever owned the club was making money hand over fist) and took a big gulp of it, feeling the heat traveling down my throat and starting to spread in my stomach.</p>
  <p>There was another girl sitting right next to me. An Asian girl, actually, although, looking a bit closer, I realized that she might be half-Asian, just like me. White instead of Mexican, though, judging by those blue eyes. That was always nice to see. And she was kind of pretty looking. So why not try and hit things off with her?</p>
  <p>“Hey,” I said, extending a hand and smiling at her. “I’m Ramona.”</p>
  <p>“…Yuri,” she said after a second, taking my hand and giving it an <em>extremely</em> quick shake.</p>
  <p>“Is that an invitation?” I asked, wiggling my eyebrows and actually getting a <em>very</em> small smile from her that lasted for a whole half second.</p>
  <p>She seemed to realize that she had smiled, however briefly, and instead gave me a look. I grinned right back at her and took another drink from my glass. She was pretty, and I knew I hadn’t had enough to drink to have beer goggles. And I liked to think I looked hot enough in my outfit.</p>
  <p>“So did you enjoy your dance?” I asked, gesturing at the crowd, which seemed to gradually be getting larger.</p>
  <p>Yuri hesitated for a second before deciding to respond to me. She nodded and took a small sip from her own glass.</p>
  <p>“There’s a certain animal release in moving around and feeling the blood pumping,” she said. “It’s a fun way to blow off steam.” She turned to look at me. “Although there are other ways.”</p>
  <p>“Yeah, but it’s hard to do those in front of everyone,” I said, smiling. She was pretty hot, in a cold way. Hah, unintentional pun! “But if you want to dance with me, then I’m up for it.”</p>
  <p>“No, I think not,” Yuri said. Despite her <em>very</em> Japanese name, I couldn’t hear anything but an American accent in her words. Actually, it was a heavy <em>Boston</em> accent, which made her dignified (<em>such</em> a nicer word than stuck-up) manner all the more amusing. Well, it wasn’t as if I had ever been south of the border. “But I am willing to talk to you.”</p>
  <p>“Sure thing,” I said, spinning around on the stool to better look at her. “Are you a Bay native?”</p>
  <p>“No,” Yuri said. “I’ve just finished college and… came here for work.” She smiled, in what would be a hard, disturbing way if I wasn’t flirting with her. “There’s going to be some big shake-ups at my company and they’re going to be <em>very</em> glad that they got me.”</p>
  <p>“Really, college, huh?” I asked. “I’d like to go, someday.”</p>
  <p>And who knew when that someday would happen. I wasn’t exactly pulling in the dough at Kit’s.</p>
  <p>“A good college is only for those who can excel at it,” Yuri said, running a hand through her short black hair. “I’m the only person in the building who should go to a place like Cornell.”</p>
  <p>“At least you’re humble about it,” I said, propping one elbow on the bar and my chin on my hand.</p>
  <p>“Humility is for people who can’t accept their strengths,” Yuri said, sniffing and taking a much larger swallow of her drink. “I know exactly who I am and what I want.”</p>
  <p>“And what <em>do</em> you want?” I asked, smiling a bit at her.</p>
  <p>“Right now, I want you,” Yuri said, sliding off of the stool and looking me over. “Follow me.”</p>
  <p>“I love you too, Yuri,” I said, thinking for half a second before draining the rest of my drink and following her. What the hell, getting bossed around could be fun some of the time. And she <em>was</em> hot. That excused a lot.</p>
  <p>Yuri pretty much dragged me through a staff-only door. Luckily there was nobody around for the five seconds we were in the hall before she opened up another door and pushed me through. It was a supply closet, truly the most romantic of locations. Well, at least it beat the <em>janitor’s</em> closet.</p>
  <p>Then she was pinning me against the wall, trying to look down on me. That she was in heels and that I wasn’t <em>helped</em>, but she still didn’t really manage to tower over me like she was trying to. I thought about squatting a bit to help her out, but she seemed touchy enough that she wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.</p>
  <p>Instead, we started kissing. Well, making out, more like. This wasn’t the slow, kind of scary kissing that two girlfriends did when they first pressed their lips against each other. This was all about the fire that was burning in my belly and had to be in hers as well. My hands started wandering over her body, while hers went down to my ass and squeezed <em>hard</em>.</p>
  <p>I moaned into Yuri’s mouth as she groped me. Man, how long <em>had</em> it been since I had gotten laid? Right now, I was thinking that it had to the night of the high school graduation party, with my best friend (now in Texas, sadly), where we had teamed up on… what’s his name. I had to have gotten laid since then, right? Well, who cared about how long it had been, when there was a hot, bossy girl kissing me.</p>
  <p>Not that it wasn’t fun to kiss a hot, subby girl as well. I was fine either way. But Yuri obviously wasn’t going to let go of me and I was just fine with that. I ran my hands up and down her back, sometimes feeling her dress and sometimes feeling her soft skin. It was <em>really</em> fun to kiss her. I hadn’t been more than a bit turned on when we had left the club floor, but now I was starting to get <em>wet</em>.</p>
  <p>And I hoped Yuri was getting wet a well. I helped out with that, grinding against her, though I wasn’t touching her nearly as possessively as she was touching me. Man, if this ended with her trying to put a collar on me…</p>
  <p>“Get down on your knees,” Yuri said, breaking from the kiss and breathing hard as she stared at me. “Right now.”</p>
  <p>I glanced down at the floor. It was clean enough, so I obeyed, staring up at her as she looked down at me. There was red on her face as she looked at me. Then she lifted the bottom of her dress, the blue fabric going up and up until I could see her underwear. It was a pretty racy thong, the sort of thing that I could never bring myself to wear.</p>
  <p>“Lick it,” Yuri commanded. “Eat me out, Ramona.”</p>
  <p>Hey, she actually remembered my name! I hadn’t been certain about that. Well, since she asked so nicely, the least I could do was give her some pleasure in return. I reached up and grabbed the sides of her thong, slowly pulling it down as I stared up at her. There was heat and anticipation in her gaze as she stared down at me. She obviously wanted this just as much as I did.</p>
  <p>Yuri was shaved bare, though I had already been able to tell that from how tight and skimpy the thong was. It actually looked pretty hot and I shivered, before leaning in. It had been a while since I had eaten out another girl. I hoped I could still remember how to do it. One way to find out.</p>
  <p>I pressed my face up against her crotch and got to work, running my tongue back and forth and listening to her starting to gasp and to moan. She was a lot more turned on that I had been expecting her to be. Like, a <em>lot</em>. Well, that just made things more enjoyable.</p>
  <p>I ran my tongue back and forth along her folds, not actually sliding inside just yet. I wasn’t at all surprised when her hands came down to grab at my head. I grabbed her thighs in return, all that was more to keep my head steady than because I was establishing my dominance over her.</p>
  <p>“That’s right,” Yuri said, her voice choked with lust and sounding <em>really</em> hot. “Keep on eating me out, you little slut.”</p>
  <p>Ugh, language much? If I was a slut for doing this, then wouldn’t she be a slut for returning the favor? Which she <em>was</em> going to be doing, that wasn’t in question. I rolled my eyes and ran my tongue along her clit. That got her to gasp and to tighten her hands on my head, pulling at my hair a bit and making me wince.</p>
  <p>“You’re right were you belong, servicing the new power of…” she abruptly cut herself off and I glanced up at her face, still keeping my mouth busy. She shook her head and glared down at me. “Are you doing anything down there or just wasting my time? Keep on licking!”</p>
  <p>Wow, it was so <em>nice</em> to be appreciated. I kept on licking and decided that it was about time for my tongue to enter her. I slid it on it, feeling her walls trying to squeeze down around me. Wow, she was <em>tight</em>. Had she ever had a dick up there?</p>
  <p>And she was very wet, too. Like, <em>really</em> wet. I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be down here before she came. After which it would be time for her to take care of me, of course. I wasn’t <em>as</em> horny as Yuri was, but I was still feeling pretty turned on.</p>
  <p>I was taking the edge off of that a bit, with my hand going to work in between my legs. But there was still something so <em>awesome</em> about feeling someone else’s hands or tongue or dick on my body. Soon, I promised myself. Real soon, I’d be getting that.</p>
  <p>“Come on,” Yuri moaned, her hips starting to rock forward against me in a smooth motion. “Come on, I’m almost there.”</p>
  <p>I thought she was probably right, with how wet she was. And how she was playing with her own boobs. They were a touch larger than mine, it seemed, judging by how they were bouncing around now that she had gotten them out of her top. One hand was playing with first her right breast and then her left, while the other hand was firm on my head, making sure that I didn’t go <em>anywhere</em>. It was kind of hot, especially now that she wasn’t boasting so arrogantly.</p>
  <p>I ran my hand up and down her thigh, feeling the smooth skin and the lack of muscles underneath. Spent all her time on her butt reading instead of working out, huh? Well, she looked nice anyway, so it was hard to complain. I kissed her clit, pressing my lips firmly against the stiff little nub. She made a really nice sound at that, almost a <em>whine</em>. And I would be that she would get really pissed if I ever brought that up.</p>
  <p>I kept on working, bringing her closer and closer. In probably another minute or so, I’d manage it, I thought. I would just need to put a little bit more work in, and then we’d see about returning the favor. Once she was able to speak again or whatever, depending on how hard the orgasm hit.</p>
  <p>I swirled my tongue around inside of her, feeling it getting covered with a fresh layer of semi-pleasant tasting arousal. And that did the trick. Yuri stiffened above me, gasping and rocking back and forth. I looked at her face, watching her cum. It was <em>really</em> hot to see. It sent a warm shiver all through me as I stared, watching her moan and twitch.</p>
  <p>Yuri was banging against the closet door so much I was a bit worried about someone opening it up and finding the two of us. But her orgasm didn’t last for <em>that</em> long. Then she settled down and just started breathing in and out, looking down at me with a big smile on her face.</p>
  <p>“Well, you <em>do</em> know how to make me feel good,” she said, banging into me as she reached down to pull her underwear back up into place. “You did good enough that I’ll even return the favor and indulge you.” I opened my mouth to comment, but she kept on talking. “Get up and face the wall.”</p>
  <p>“That sounds like something a movie villain says just before ripping the spine out of some poor sap,” I said, turning around and bracing my hands against the wall, almost knocking over a stack of paper straws as I did so.</p>
  <p>“What a lovely mental image,” Yuri said as she pressed herself up against me. Her breath tickled my ear. “You should be a poet.”</p>
  <p>After that, I stopped responding to what she was saying in favor of responding to what she was <em>doing</em>. And she was doing quite a bit. I shivered, feeling her hands on me, roving over my torso. She went up to my boobs, squeezing them and almost making them pop out of my top. Then she went on down and that felt even better as she started to rub against my crotch. I gasped and shivered, feeling the arousal building and building inside of me as she teased me, going back and forth, over and over again.</p>
  <p>“You did good enough to get me to touch you like this,” Yuri said, speaking right into my ear. “But if you want to <em>cum</em>, then you’re going to have to beg.”</p>
  <p>“Where am I going to find a piece of cardboard and a marker at this time of night?” I asked, before squeaking as Yuri pinched my ass.</p>
  <p>“Or maybe I’ll just find something to gag you with,” Yuri said, but there was a bit of levity at the bottom of her voice. “That might be better.”</p>
  <p>I shrugged and then shivered. Her hand had slid down underneath my dress and now it was coming back up. And it was making me feel all weak and excited, in the best possible way. I gasped, feeling the hand moving back and forth, rising higher and higher up all the time. And going slower and slower all the time, until Yuri was just below my shaved pussy and refusing to rise any higher up.</p>
  <p>I panted, rocking back and forth against her. Damn, how did she know how to do this to me? And even if her one hand was still, the other <em>wasn’t</em>. She was still touching the rest of my body. Mainly my boobs, but every now and then, she’d lift her hand up to my face to circle around my lips or stroke my cheeks.</p>
  <p>I blinked, realizing that Yuri’s hands were quite like the rest of her. They were pretty banged up, with a lot of scratch marks and oil and grease underneath her fingernails. Not quite the cool, collected image she normally projected. Well, maybe it was her job, maybe it was her hobby, and whatever it was didn’t really matter so long as she didn’t ask me to suck on her fingers.</p>
  <p>And she didn’t. Instead, she just kept on feeling me up and making me feel good. But not <em>nearly</em> as good as she could be making me feel, which was <em>awful</em>. I knew I’d be able to cum really quickly if she would just let her fingers wander on up to my pussy.</p>
  <p>And I knew how I was going to get to feel that, too. She had told me, after all. I took a deep breath and shivered.</p>
  <p>“Please, Yuri,” I said, trying to make my voice as high-pitched and needy as I could. “Will you please let me cum?”</p>
  <p>“Not yet,” she said instantly, sounding <em>very</em> amused with herself. “But I’ll touch your pussy if you ask me to.”</p>
  <p>Well, sure, why not?</p>
  <p>“Please, Yuri,” I said again, not able to force my voice quite so high this time, “will you please touch my pussy?”</p>
  <p>“Of course, since you asked so nicely,” she said, a smirk in her voice.</p>
  <p>And then she was touching me. It felt <em>great</em> and I moaned, feeling her fingertips brushing against me through my panties. I shivered, rocking back and forth and wanting <em>more</em>. Wanting a whole heck of a lot more, really. I bit my lip, feeling the pleasure building and building inside of me as she teased me. I knew what she was doing. She was going to make me ask for an orgasm after getting me so worked up it was all that I could think about.</p>
  <p>“Please, please, Yuri,” I moaned, putting all of the lust I was feeling into my plea. “Can you please let me cum?”</p>
  <p>“That’s the way you should ask,” Yuri said with a note of satisfaction in her voice. “Just like a wet, needy slut who gets fucked in a closet.”</p>
  <p>I was hardly going to object to that, when I was so close to cumming. I closed my eyes as Yuri’s fingers slid underneath my panties and started fucking my folds. They felt <em>great</em> and I knew I was going to be cumming any second now. I rocked back and forth, feeling it building and building inside of me.</p>
  <p>And then it was happening. I gasped, my eyes going wide open as I felt the pleasure unfurling like a flower inside of me. I shivered, gasping and feeling the orgasm filling up every inch of my body. This was <em>just</em> what I needed. Yuri was turning me on so much and I absolutely loved it.</p>
  <p>I could feel my pussy squeezing down tight around her as she chuckled. I could picture the expression on her face as she looked at me. I stuck my ass out, trying to get the last few drops of pleasure possible from her.</p>
  <p>Even when the orgasm ended, that didn’t mean I wasn’t still feeling <em>great</em>. I shivered, the warm glow still filling me up, giving a wonderful tingle that wasn’t going to be going away anytime soon. Even her fingers sliding out of me and running down along my thigh sent a shiver through me that I loved.</p>
  <p>I slumped down, barely able to keep myself upright. Damn, that had been one <em>good</em> orgasm. I smiled, feeling the pleasure still thudding deep inside of me. That was the kind of thing I could get used to. Although being the one on top could be just as satisfying.</p>
  <p>I straightened up and turned around, twitching my dress into place. Yuri was looking at me with a smirk on her face, looking me up and down.</p>
  <p>“That was <em>real</em> nice, Yuri,” I said with a smile, giving her a quick hug that made her eyes widen. “Thank you.”</p>
  <p>“Of course,” she said, waving her hand. Somehow, it seemed like she should be smoking a cigarette. “You were acceptable yourself.” I opened my mouth to gush about how that was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to me, but she was still talking. “Give me your phone number, so I can get in touch with you if I need your services again.”</p>
  <p>Wow, so <em>romantic</em>. But I wouldn’t mind seeing her again, either. I smiled and nodded, diving into the single pocket the dress had for my phone. After a few seconds, we had exchanged numbers. And a few minutes after that, I was headed home.</p>
  <p>With a big damn smile on my face. Man, that was <em>good</em>. Now that my head was a bit calmer, I could remember that I had gotten fucked three months ago, but that was <em>still</em> a long dry spell to go through. And there was even the possibility for more sexing later!</p>
  <p>There was a big grin on my face underneath the helmet as I swung through the city streets. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this good after a fuck. Normally, I was a bit tired, but now I was feeling like I was on top of the world. There was just all this energy inside of me waiting to be used, even though it was a bit past midnight.</p>
  <p>The house was dark and dead when I got home, so I tried to be as quiet as I could so that Mom wouldn’t wake up. Which was hard, since I almost felt like tap dancing up the stairs. I already knew I wasn’t going to be going to sleep.</p>
  <p>Man, I was feeling <em>great</em>. Way better than I did after masturbating. Like I was on top of the world, or that I was hooked up to a power line. There was just so much that I wanted to get out and do. There was no way I was going to be able to go to sleep like this.</p>
  <p>Instead, I headed out to the garage, only pausing to slide out of my clubbing dress and into something appropriate for dust and grease. I had no idea what I was going to do in the garage, but there had to be <em>something</em> for me out there.</p>
  <p>I gravitated towards the workbench that I used for whatever minor repairs I could do to my scooter on my own. My mind was buzzing with ideas, with stuff I just <em>had</em> to try out. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was thinking of, but I wanted to see what happened if I put a bit of work in with all of the metal and gears and circuits I had squirreled away over the years.</p>
  <p>I sat down on my stool and just grabbed whatever was close to hand. Man, why had I never thought of the fact that I could do this stuff? It all seemed to flow so <em>easily</em>, on a level below thought.</p>
  <p>I wasn’t sure how long I spent there in the garage, hunched over the bench and riffling through the various drawers and junk scattered across the floor. It was only when I was done that my brain really started to get back into gear. And I realized what I was looking at.</p>
  <p>It was an ugly, irregular block, with wires and stuff sticking out of it every which way. And it was a <em>bomb</em>. I could tell that just by looking at it. The digital clock that had used to be above the door to the kitchen was a big hint as it steadily blinked 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 over and over again. But there was something else, something deeper in me that told me that if I set a time on the clock, then when it reached that time, it would go off, spreading a cloud of super-heated engine coolant through the area.</p>
  <p>Oh holy <em>shit</em>, what had I just done? And how had I even known how to do it?</p>
  <p>That answer came to me <em>really</em> quickly. I backed up against Mom’s car, making low sounds in the back of my throat. Yuri. Oh shit, hadn’t she said she had been at Cornell before coming here? And hadn’t Mom and I been disgusted over the racially-tinged coverage of that girl who had gone nuts up there and threatened to blow the entire campus up before getting captured? How was she out? How was she <em>here</em>?</p>
  <p>I dived at the bomb I had just made, yanking at the power cords to shut the entire thing down right <em>now</em>. What was I going to <em>do</em> with this?</p>
  <p>Hell, what was I going to do about <em>Yuri</em>?</p>
  <div class="messageTextEndMarker">
    <p> </p>
  </div>
</div><div class="threadmarker_nav_bottom">
  <p> </p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Five</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>My shoulders were slumped as I clocked in to work. Really, who could blame me? There was a <em>lot</em> of stuff on my mind lately. What I had done to a girl even younger than I was. That I had fucked a supervillain. That the supervillain was interested in seeing more of me. That was the <em>freshest</em> worry, because ‘Yuri’ kept on texting me once or twice every few days, wondering if I was around.<br/><br/>I hadn’t really answered yet, putting her off as noncommittedly as I possibly could. Figuring out how to deal with 'Yuri' was going to have to be a problem for future Ramona. Present Ramona had to get through the work day without making any problems.<br/><br/>“Morning, Ramona,” Kit said, glancing up from the industrial mixer that she was pouring a bag of flour into. Then she took another look at me. “You feeling alright?”<br/><br/>“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, waving my hand around. “Just had trouble sleeping last night.”<br/><br/>“A glass of warm milk always works for me,” Kit said, shaking the last of the flour into the mixer and missing the expression I made at that. “That or thinking about where I’d go on an all-expenses paid vacation.”<br/><br/>“The capitalist class living off of the sweat of the working woman,” I mumbled, tying on my apron.<br/><br/>“You take more time off than I do, girl,” Kit responded with a grin. “Actually, I hope that I don’t have to make you take <em>more</em> time off.”<br/><br/>“I thought business was going fine,” I said, frowning as I looked up. I <em>liked</em> working here, I didn’t want to go put time in some burger place. “Is there problems with money?”<br/><br/>“Not now, but if you could put in a big order every week for the next few months, I’d be <em>way</em> more relaxed over the upcoming schedule,” Kit said, flipping the switch and making the mixer start to growl as the massive beater spun around inside of the bowl. She took another look at my expression and sighed. “I’m mostly joking, Ramona. Things might not have a whole lot of squeeze room for the rest of the month, but I’m not going to have to fire you or anything.”<br/><br/>“Is there anything I could do to help?” I asked, wondering just what it was that I could do <em>to</em> help her.<br/><br/>“Well, if you could get all of my suppliers to agree to give me flour and lard and butter and the like for free, that would <em>really</em> help with the cost of doing business,” Kit said. “Failing that,” she slid a piece of paper across the counter towards me, “getting started on the garlic bread would be a nice start.”<br/><br/>I glanced down at the order and got to work, pulling down the head-sized container we kept the powdered garlic in. We worked in silence for a few minutes before Kit shook her head and sighed.<br/><br/>“Really, Ramona, I love having you here, I love this work, but… look at this city. I thought that a big city with plenty of skyscrapers would have tons of work for someone who can cater to parties and luncheons, but it seems that there’s fewer and fewer offers, for less pay and more services.” She sighed heavily, not looking up at me as she changed plastic gloves and started working on some cookies. “I don’t know what it would take to make this city blossom.”<br/><br/>Neither did I, not really. But… it sure wouldn’t recover if people didn’t do their part to help. And I could do a lot to help. A whole lot more than working part-time for a small business. I shifted around, worrying. Could I really go out there again? Should I go out there again? It was hard to tell. Really damn hard.<br/><br/>As I buttered the bread in preparation for the garlic coating, I wondered about what I should be doing. And even as I thought about it, there was this sense of energy and restlessness welling up inside of me, a demand for me to go out and actually bother <em>doing</em> something, using the powers I had.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>“Wolio,” I half-whistled and half-said to myself as I stared into the mirror. “Wah WAH wah.” I paused for a second. “Wolio... Wah wah waaah.”<br/><br/>I fixed the mirror with the best stone-cold glare that I could, resting one hand on my belt. “You see in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.”<br/><br/>Okay, the mask was disguising my voice like it should. Now if only I could get it to disguise my voice with something other than a light French accent. I had <em>no</em> idea where the hell that was coming from and, sadly, I wasn’t good enough to debugging the tech to actually figure it out. And I certainly wasn’t going to tear it all apart to start over, which was the only other option.<br/><br/>Other than that oddity, I looked <em>good</em>. Kind of like some sci-fi sheriff. A long, brown coat that swung around my ankles, boots with a heel to give me an extra inch and a tight-fitting metal hat with built-in mask that you couldn’t even tell how once been part of a car. The red lenses in the helmet meant that any glare I gave didn’t have much of an effect except on myself, but it still felt <em>right</em> to glare while wearing this outfit.<br/><br/>The golden star on my chest, well, I had gotten that from a thrift store. But nobody needed to get close enough to see that there was nothing written on it. And wearing a sheriff’s star just seemed to <em>fit</em> the situation, somehow.<br/><br/>I had gotten pretty lucky, scavenging for materials high and low. And, of course, there was the fact that ‘Yuri’s’ power was still helping me out. I sure couldn’t have figured out a way to make all of this on my own. Getting the materials? Yeah, sure. It hadn't been the proudest moment of my life, dumpster diving like a hobo looking for cans to sell while stashing anything important in my pocket dimension, but it had done the trick. Modifying and changing them into something I could actually wear? It had kind of been scary how easily it had all flowed together once it was underneath my hands.<br/><br/>This was going to work. I was sure of it this time. ‘Yuri’s’ powers were still holding on and I had a belt with about half a dozen (thoroughly non-lethal) bombs attached to it. Plus, of course, I had used Menja’s power to give myself even more height than the black cowboy boots could give me. I was almost six foot six in this outfit and it made me look intimidating for the first time in my life.<br/><br/>Okay, I thought it was just about time for me to head out and go be the very best hero I could be. So long Jester, it was time for Sentinel to take the stage.<br/><br/>And now I just had to go out and let the city know that there was a new heroine protecting and looking out for them. And <em>this</em> time there wouldn’t be any mistakes. I was going to do this <em>right</em>.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>Well, that was a bust. I scowled underneath my metal mask as I kicked at an empty can. How on earth was I so <em>bad</em> at finding crime to fight? If you were a superhero, you were supposed to just stumble across a plan to kidnap the mayor when getting your morning coffee or something. But I had spent <em>hours</em>, going up and down streets and alleys and keeping my eyes and ears peeled and I hadn’t found <em>anything</em> beyond a confirmation that there sure were a lot of rats in the city.<br/><br/>And now it was late, I was tired, I was <em>grumpy</em> and I was going to go back home and be glad that I didn’t have work tomorrow morning. What a waste. At least some people I had met while I was out and about thought that my costume was cool, which was a nice ego boost.<br/><br/>Maybe I should text ‘Yuri’ again just so that I could show up in costume and arrest her. That would be Plan B, I decided. B for Bored and if I spent another night out like this with nothing to show for it, I was going to be very bored indeed.<br/><br/>I was distracted from my grumbling by some sounds from around the corner. I perked up and started jogging towards it. There were at least two women talking pretty loudly but I- shit, that was a lot of glass breaking.<br/><br/>I sped up and then slowed down as I got to the corner. I was <em>pretty</em> sure my helmet was bulletproof, but pretty sure and confident were two different things. And there was the rest of me as well.<br/><br/>I didn’t recognize the two women at first. They were obviously capes, nobody else would wear a birdcage on her head. Then a memory clicked. It was Cricket and… some weird name that started with an O. The red bodysuit really helped me peg her as part of the Empire. Cricket was getting up in some guy’s face, waving around a one-handed scythe while the other cape stood back a bit and glared at him.<br/><br/>I didn’t know what was going on, but fucking up a Nazi’s day was hardly a <em>bad</em> thing, was it? I took a deep breath and started around the corner, glad that there was actually a slight breeze so that the coat blew around my ankles.<br/><br/>“What the hell’s going on here?” I said gruffly, striding towards the trio.<br/><br/>Which quickly became a duo, since as soon as Cricket turned to look at me, the man slipped away and dashed down an alley. Well, so long pal, thanks for sticking around as a vote of confidence in me.<br/><br/>“Is this a joke?” The woman who wasn’t Cricket asked underneath her breath. “Howdy, pardner,” she said in a drawl, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head. “Just blow into town today?”<br/><br/>“You can laugh all you want in jail,” I said, crossing my arms and tilting my head forward a bit so that the red glare of my lenses would be more prominently displayed. “And that’s where you’ll be before dawn.”<br/><br/>“Scum,” Cricket said, sounding like there was something lodged in her throat. She drew out another curved blade and spun it around in a pretty impressive display, the sharp steel passing by her skin without a single flinch. “Othala, strength.”<br/><br/>“Go get her,” Othala said, resting her hand on Cricket’s shoulder for a few seconds as I took up a fighting pose of my own. “Then let’s be on our way.”<br/><br/>One thing I hadn’t had time to build was a good (non-lethal) gun, so it seemed that I was going to be beating up Cricket in hand to hand. But I had a good foot or so on her and even if I didn’t still have Browbeat’s enhanced muscle, I still had brass knuckles woven into the fabric of my gloves. And I had Circus’s power, though I wasn’t going to be using anything more than the enhanced reflexes. I didn’t want to be breathing fire and raising questions about Jester. And, of course, there was Glory Girl’s power, which was probably going to be my best bet. A forcefield that gave me super strength when it was up. I’d just need to make sure to keep it up instead of having it be knocked down and leaving me at the mercy of a Nazi.<br/><br/>We started running at each other. I swallowed a bit, since sharp blades were somehow a whole lot more <em>real</em> than guns and the like were. But I wasn’t backing down. I <em>needed</em> a fucking win here, something to show that my career wasn’t going to be one long string of lost fights, inconclusive wins and victories that I’d rather not have gotten.<br/><br/>Cricket was <em>damn</em> fast. But I wasn’t limited to the speed and reflexes I would have been at once either. I swayed past her first strike and lashed out. I might only have my fists while Cricket had blades, but Cricket was still <em>short</em>. We had about the same amount of reach, I’d say. I still didn’t connect, but it did make her draw back a bit, just for a second. Then she was coming in at me again.<br/><br/>I was throwing a whole lot of punches and not hitting a whole lot. But that was because I was also dodging a lot. Cricket was <em>fast</em> and she was strong enough that she was actually putting some cuts and tears in my coat. The leather was tough enough and the blows off enough that she hadn’t gotten <em>me</em> yet though.<br/><br/>She bounced back and <em>screamed</em>. I jerked back, my ears ringing at the impossibly loud sound. And that almost cost me, since she followed up with another series of strikes that I had trouble blocking. But I managed and even managed to connect a weak punch to her arm. It wasn’t enough to knock her blade away but it did make her grunt.<br/><br/>And with how much force I was using from Glory Girl’s power, that meant that I really <em>hadn’t</em> connected very well. I wasn’t really <em>sad</em> about that, because I didn’t want to kill even a Nazi, but it still wasn’t a great sign.<br/><br/>The fight went on and on and I realized that I might not win this. And the longer the fight went on, the more chance there was for something <em>bad</em> to happen to me. So far, Cricket’s knives had only gotten my coat or went by my head, but was that going to last forever? I doubted it. And even with Glory Girl’s forcefield, it could only block the first hit. With how fast Cricket was swinging those blades around, I could easily see my shield blocking the first blow and then getting cut to ribbons by the second before I could get it back up.<br/><br/>Sure, my power was slowly draining hers. But it was <em>slowly</em> draining Cricket and slowly wasn’t something I really wanted to do right now. And heck, I didn’t know if it was draining Cricket or draining Othala instead.<br/><br/>But I still had my ace in the hole, clattering around on my belt. I managed to drive Cricket back a few steps with a series of punches and kicks. None of them connected, but she did give me some space. Enough space to reach down and grab one of the spheres hanging off of my belt. I popped the lid, pressed the button and hurled it at Cricket. I couldn’t see her eyes through her metal helmet, but her body language provided enough feedback anyway.<br/><br/>The filters in my helmet kicked in, dimming the light and muffling the sound. Cricket couldn’t do the same and I grinned underneath my helmet as I thought about how the flashbang would be treating her.<br/><br/>That almost cost me. The first scythe came flashing out and slid up my arm, thankfully bouncing off of the forcefield. The second one followed and I barely managed to get out of the way in time, adding another long tear down the back of my coat. Cricket seemed even more pissed off than before and she was still coming after me like a bat out of hell.<br/><br/>She followed up with another scream and strikes, strikes that I barely managed to get away from and certainly didn’t have time to grab another one of the bombs hanging from my belt. At least she didn’t actually <em>get</em> me, although it was a close thing. And if I didn’t have Glory Girl’s forcefield, I’d have been bleeding out half a dozen times over from how many times I wasn’t quite fast or agile enough.<br/><br/>I did manage to stomp down <em>hard</em> on her foot, though. She grunted, even though the boots she was wearing meant that it didn’t do that much. A shoulder check, like I was some football player, as a follow-up and I had some breathing room. Just enough to reach down and grab another bomb, one of the more exotic ones.<br/><br/>It was basically a giant pepper spray bomb, one that my costume could deal with but both Cricket and Othala should find a bit harder to manage. I threw it down right at my feet, before jumping back as Cricket lunged forward. And managed to kick the bomb, sending it bouncing off to the side where it landed underneath a car before going off with a <em>thump</em>.<br/><br/>Cricket coughed a bit but she didn’t end up doubled over like I had hoped. At least I could feel a new color or weight or whatever starting to fill me up as my power finally started leeching enough from her for me to notice. Now I just needed to keep <em>on</em> surviving long enough for her to lose the power of knives.<br/><br/>“Hurry up, Cricket,” Othala called out from where she still stood. “Stop toying with her and let’s get back home!”<br/><br/>This was her messing around with me? I scowled and kicked at her. She dodged, again, and brought both of her scythes down on my leg. If I hadn’t been able to twist out of the way of the first one, the second would have bitten deep into my lower leg. As it was, the twist still unbalanced me enough that I went crashing down to the street in a clatter as my helmet bounced against the sidewalk.<br/><br/>Fuck, this was bad. But my hand had still ended up right by my waist. I grabbed another bomb without even looking down at it to see what one it was. As I lifted it up, I could see the blue edging I had put around it. Fine, that would do it. I held the bomb up right in between Cricket and me and triggered it.<br/><br/>Time slowed to a crawl. I could see Cricket’s blades coming towards me, moving slower than a snail. I wasn’t moving any faster, slowly rocking backwards in slow motion. But that was fine. Because even though we were both caught in a temporary time bubble, my power was still working. I could <em>feel</em> myself draining Cricket, slowly sucking away at her power as I felt it start to fill me up, the weight of it becoming heavier, the color of it becoming brighter.<br/><br/>Outside the sphere created by the time bomb, I could see Othala starting to speed up, zipping around the bubble and looking in at us. It was like a cartoon or something. Then she vanished, zooming off into the distance. Damn it, I had wanted to take care of her, too. Taking out two villains all by myself? That would <em>prove</em> how good of a hero I was. To myself, which would be the most important thing.<br/><br/>If I didn’t know that the time bomb would only last for five minutes, I’d be freaking out. I could tell that Cricket was as she started jerking around in slow motion, trying to get out of the bubble, even dropping her scythes as she tried to whirl around. And all the while, I kept on drinking from her, filling up on her power and feeling the new weight centering itself on me. I had already gotten a good start on things before I had triggered the bomb, but now, like this? There was nothing <em>to</em> do except sit here and wait for me to get everything I could. Maybe I could have stopped before she was completely drained dry, like I had with Glory Girl and Menja. But nah, screw this Nazi. I was going to take everything from her and leave her as nothing more than some girl in a stupid costume.<br/><br/>Finally, the bubble burst, complete with a weird popping sound. I sagged a bit as the world and I synced ourselves back up. Man, that was a weird sensation. Not one I really liked, either. But it was a lot worse for Cricket, especially because I could feel the full weight of her powers filling me, giving me her weird radar-like scream and everything.<br/><br/>“Hah,” I half-sighed and half-laughed. “Ah hah hah.” I looked at Cricket and kicked her blades away. Those weren’t something I could or would use and there was no reason for her to have them, either. “It’s all over for you, girl.”<br/><br/>Cricket just moaned, clutching her head. Maybe if she wasn’t a Nazi bitch who tried to kill people with knives, I’d feel more sorry for her. Instead, there was a wonderful sense of elation welling up inside of me, spreading through my body and making me feel on top of the world.<br/><br/>“What was in that,” Cricket moaned, her voice sounding even more fucked-up than before, “in that bomb?” She rubbed her throat and clutched the sides of her head. “What did you do to me?”<br/><br/>I didn’t bother answering her. Instead, I lightly kicked her back to the ground as she tried to get up. She might not have powers anymore and she seemed pretty out of it, but she was still a lot more fit than I was and did have scythes. Nothing good could come from her deciding to try for Round Two. And I wanted to make sure that I drained her powers as dry as they could go. Why should she get to use those powers to hurt anyone anytime soon?<br/><br/>Yes. Oh yes, yes, <em>yes</em>! I had done it! I had beaten another cape! There weren’t any caveats, there wasn’t any drawbacks, Cricket was done at my feet and she was <em>finished</em>. Sure, Othala was long gone, but so <em>what</em>? I’d still beaten Cricket. There was a <em>huge</em> smile on my face and the warm, tingly feeling that was spreading through me banished all of the fatigue and aches that had started to build up.<br/><br/>I reached down and grabbed the pair of handcuffs that had been clattering on my belt. I pulled Cricket’s arms behind her back and snapped the cuffs around first one wrist and then the other. It felt <em>good</em> to look down and see a supervillain in cuffs at my feet. Really damn good. But it would feel even better when I got to see her getting bundled into a cop car.<br/><br/>I pulled my burner phone out of Circus’s storage dimension. I had waited for a long, <em>long</em> time to do this. And even researched what it was that I should be doing, punching in the number for the PRT line instead of just 911.<br/><br/>It was time for Sentinel to report some good news. Some of the <em>best</em> news that I had heard all week. And this was just the beginning. Sentinel was going to be doing <em>good</em> for the city.<br/><br/>The E88, the ABB, the Merchants, whoever else there was that was wrecking the city, I was going to take them <em>all</em> down and leave them outright powerless in every sense of the word. I was grinning like a loon as I held the phone up.<br/><br/>I was flying high, high, high as I talked to the dispatcher on the other end of the line, a tired sounding man. I couldn’t let the fatigue and tedium in his voice bring me down, not as I reported that that I had captured a villain and that she was ready for pickup. And the news that a hero was coming to see what I had done, well, that was a <em>bit</em> worrying (nobody ever liked getting their tests back to see what the score would be) but it wasn’t nearly enough to bring me down. I could just slip my phone back into my pocket dimension and stand around, looking down at Cricket and reflecting how much better this fight had gone than any of the fights before. Hell, she hadn’t even ended up naked like Circus, which was <em>still</em> something that I couldn’t quite believe had happened.<br/><br/>So, Triumph was coming to meet me, huh? I tried to think about what I knew of Triumph. Not a whole lot. Had a lion helmet that some of my friends had made fun of when he was in the Wards, but other than that… man, what <em>were</em> his powers? Well, it shouldn’t matter. I wasn’t going to end up in a fight with him or anything. And I wasn’t going to drain his powers either, because that would just be a bad idea on <em>so</em> many levels.<br/><br/>A big black truck came squealing around the corner I had come around. I could see the white logo of the PRT on the hood and I straightened up, putting my hands behind my back and breathing in and out. Okay, this was it. I could do this, no problem. Just meet them, hand Cricket over, get some compliments for a job well done, easy peasy.<br/><br/>The truck slid to a halt a few yards away from me. The passenger door opened up and Triumph got out. Despite everything, I was a bit jealous of how nice and heroic his costume looked. That was the benefit of joining a team, huh?<br/><br/>This was it, meeting a hero without it devolving into a fight.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Six</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>I swallowed heavily underneath the mask as the PRT van pulled to a screeching halt just a bit down the road. The turret was pointed at me, the barrel looking <em>really</em> ominous. It still looked ominous when I took a few steps to the side and it stayed pointing at Cricket, who had been right next to me.<br/><br/>Behind the first few black-uniformed PRT grunts, I could see the golden costume of Triumph. I took a deep breath and pushed myself up straight, trying to look as presentable and heroic and non-villainous as I could.<br/><br/>The troopers fanned out while Triumph came right at me. I made sure that my hands stayed calm at my sides and was <em>really</em> glad that my mask was hiding my face. And that the vocalizer was going to make me sound calm and in control.<br/><br/>“Hi,” I said as soon as Triumph was in range. “I’m glad to see you guys.”<br/><br/>“It’s nice to see you too, ma’am,” Triumph said, before tilting his lion-head mask down a bit to stare at Cricket as some troopers surrounded her, pointing their spray nozzles at her twitching body. “And it’s even better to see someone like Cricket not fighting us.”<br/><br/>“Feel free to take her,” I said quickly. “I’m not going to haggle over the paperwork or anything.”<br/><br/>“Thank you,” he said as Cricket got hauled up to her feet, two troopers keeping their foam sprayers pointed at her at all times. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Triumph,” he said, sticking out his hand.<br/><br/>“And I’m Sentinel,” I replied, taking his hand in both of mine and giving it a firm shake. “I’m just starting out.”<br/><br/>“But making a good name for yourself as you do so,” he nodded, the bottom of his mask clinking against his breastplate. “And someone with your look will certainly stick in the mind if I hear anything more about you,” he added.<br/><br/>“Thanks,” I said, fingering my belt. So far this was going so good. But could it last?<br/><br/>“So, mind telling me what happened, exactly?” Triumph said, gesturing around at the city street and the sidewalk. My bomb fragments were scattered around, but at least there weren’t any actual craters. “Cricket’s a pretty unpleasant woman to tangle with.”<br/><br/>I nodded and launched into the story I had prepared, which was mostly true. Walking down the street, hearing the commotion, seeing Cricket and Othala, pretty much everything that had happened. But then we got closer to the part I didn’t want to brag about.<br/><br/>“She was getting pretty out of it, so I used one of my grenades,” I said, pointing at a random cluster of plastic fragments. “It worked a lot better than I thought and nullified her powers.”<br/><br/>I couldn’t see Triumph’s face underneath his mask, but he didn’t say anything for a second and was looking right at me. I swallowed, feeling my stomach churning with worry. Then he nodded.<br/><br/>“That’s quite the grenade, then,” he said casually. “Her powers gone for good?”<br/><br/>I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of the answer to that. I didn’t have Browbeat’s powers any more, that was obvious. And even though nobody online paid him much attention, I hadn’t found anything that pointed to him just completely disappearing. And Circus was apparently still around, even though I had thought I had drained her dry and still had some of what I had taken.<br/><br/>“I don’t think so,” I said, hedging my bets. “But it should still take a couple of weeks for her to get them back.”<br/><br/>“Huh,” he said, shaking his head. “Quite a power. You put anything you want in those bombs of yours?”<br/><br/>“Nope,” I said quickly, falling back on what I had rehearsed earlier. “I can move around quick and I can punch stuff real hard, but if I hadn’t taken shop in high school, I wouldn’t know the first thing about making these little toys,” I said, patting my belt where my bombs had hung. Time to get the conversation on a different subject.<br/><br/>“So, um, I didn’t get Othala. If she had a cell phone, won’t she be calling a bunch of reinforcements?” I looked up and down the street, seeing all the alleyways around us. “Should we be sticking around here?”<br/><br/>“It was pretty gutsy of you to hang around out in the open all by yourself,” Triumph said, shaking his head again. “But with me and a squad of troopers here, there’s no way they’ll try anything. Not with how thing they’re stretched already tonight.” Before I had time to think about that anymore, he turned his helmet to look at me again. “So do you have any more of those grenades with you?”<br/><br/>Shit. My tongue darted out to lick my lips as I shook my own head. At least I could tell the truth this time.<br/><br/>“No, that was the only one I had like that.” Okay, <em>now</em> I was going to tell the truth. “All of this stuff," I patted my belt, "is just tear gas, flashbangs, that sort of thing. I’m going to need some time fiddling away before I’m stocked up again on the cool stuff.”<br/><br/>My heart almost stopped beating as I waited for his reaction. Was he going to buy it? Was he going to believe that I was telling the truth? Or was he going to point at me and yell ‘ah ha, Jester, you evil villain, we’ve got you now’?<br/><br/>“Yes, that’s the downside of having a tinker ability, I hear,” Triumph said. “You need to spend a lot of time straining your eyes and hovering over a bench. But the results sure are worth it, aren’t they?”<br/><br/>I nodded, feeling my shoulders sag a bit in relief. Oh thank god. I didn’t think I had it in me to fight another hero, no matter what the circumstances.<br/><br/>“I’m pretty proud of how my first night out on the streets went,” I said, then realized how that could be taken. No, better to just push forward instead of awkwardly explaining what I meant. “Here’s hoping for a lot more to come.”<br/><br/>For pretty obvious reasons, I was clamping down as hard as I could on any attempt to try and draw on Triumph’s powers. Keeping things cool, keeping them level, not sending a hero back to base drained dry right after meeting some new girl. That was the ticket. And I was doing a pretty good job of it, too, a lot better job than I had expected. I wasn’t even <em>sipping</em> at his power, let alone getting anything of worth. Go me.<br/><br/>“Indeed,” Triumph said. “Now, listen, have you thought about joining the Protectorate? Take it from me, it is a <em>really</em> good place to find someone who can watch your back and show you the ropes. The laws are pretty loose about cape on cape fights, but it’s still possible to go too far and end up in trouble.”<br/><br/>I frowned a bit underneath my mask. Joining a team, nah, that just wasn’t for me. And I had already gotten all the lessons I needed about how a cape fight could go south. I didn’t need anything more. Also, well, the Endbringers were <em>really fucking scary</em> and I didn't want to go have to go off and die in Brisbane or somewhere fighting Behemoth.<br/><br/>“I’ll think about it,” I said, meaning <em>no</em>. I couldn’t tell if Triumph could tell that it meant no, but he didn’t push the issue either.<br/><br/>“Please do,” he said. “Now just one more thing and you can head home or wherever it is that you’re going.” I nodded as he gestured back towards the black PRT van. “Do you want to be the one we name as capturing Cricket tomorrow morning?”<br/><br/>I opened my mouth and then shut it, thinking the question over a bit more carefully. Finally, I shook my head, the swirl of instincts and considerations running around inside of my head settling into a few separate reasons.<br/><br/>One was that it had still only been a week since I had crippled Glory Girl. I didn’t want to make too much of a name for myself when New Wave was still probably feeling pretty pissed off about that and might be looking into any new female capes in the city.<br/><br/>Another was that while New Wave <em>might</em> be looking for me, the Empire certainly would. They would be either way, but at least this way, they wouldn’t have a name to ask for. Not that many people knew my cape name, but still, keeping out of the Empire’s sight for a while just seemed like a good idea.<br/><br/>And finally, I was more than happy to butter up the first hero I was on good terms with, by letting him take the credit for bringing Cricket down. Just because I didn’t plan to work inside the Protectorate didn’t mean I didn’t see the value in working <em>with</em> the Protectorate, after all. Having someone in there who liked me could be really useful.<br/><br/>There was something niggling at the back of my mind. Had Triumph really believed me? Did he really think that I was just some new cape on the scene who had gotten lucky and taken down Cricket? He sure <em>acted</em> like he did and I wanted that to be the case. But wasn’t it also possible that he was just stringing me along, knowing that I was Jester? I couldn’t see the point to it and I couldn’t see any evidence pointing that way either. So it would probably be for the best if I stopped stoking myself up over nothing. Paranoia wasn’t a very attractive trait, after all.<br/><br/>Instead, I breathed in and out and smiled underneath my mask. Why worry about that sort of thing when I was feeling so good right now?<br/><br/>“In that case,” Triumph said, extending his hand for me to shake, “I think we’re all done here. Good job on the fight, Sentinel. I look forward to seeing more of you.”<br/><br/>“Same to you,” I replied automatically, barely even thinking about what that actually meant as I shook his hand as well. “Um, well,” I stuttered, feeling a blush starting to form, “thanks, I mean.”<br/><br/>“Not at all,” Triumph said. I could <em>hear</em> the grin in his voice. “Later, Sentinel.”<br/><br/>I nodded and watched him walk back to the van. I sighed and looked up at the night sky for a bit before glancing back down as the van started to pull away as some BBPD cars pulled up. Time for me to go home and hit the sack. I was wiped <em>out</em>. But it was a good kind of tired.<br/><br/>A <em>real</em> good kind of tired. The kind of tired you were supposed to get after a good workout session. I had never felt anything besides sore and cranky after exercise, but maybe this was what those magazine articles talked about.<br/><br/>If all of my victories were going to let me feel like this, then <em>man</em>, I was looking forward to plenty more.<br/><br/></p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>The next day, I was practically bouncing as I stepped inside Kit’s Katering. She looked up at me, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear and smearing some flour on her cheek.<br/><br/>“You look happy,” she said, wiping down the counter. “You get laid last night?”<br/><br/>“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “Actually, I-,” my brain caught up with my mouth just in time. “I just had a good night last night, you know?” I rolled up my sleeves even though I didn’t have an apron on or had even clocked in. “And now I’m ready to get down to business and work my butt off.”<br/><br/>“Good, because you will,” Kit said, breaking out in a smile as I walked up to her. She leaned across the table and lightly punched my arm. “I just got a big contract lined up, Ramona!”<br/><br/>“Really?” I asked, glancing over at the small desk where she kept most of the store’s paperwork. “How big?”<br/><br/>“<em>Big</em>,” Kit said, smiling happily. “I’m going to need you to come along and help set stuff up during the actual event.”<br/><br/>“Sure thing,” I said, wondering if I was going to need to go and rent some fancy waitstaff clothing or something. “Where is it?”<br/><br/>“Down in <em>Boston</em>, can you believe it?” Kit said, shaking her head.<br/><br/>“What, really?” I asked, my eyebrows climbing all the way up to my hairline. “Is this a joke?”<br/><br/>“I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank if it is,” Kit said, smiling. “They’ve already put half down and it cleared, no problems.”<br/><br/>“Well, huh,” I wittily responded, trying to make sense of this. I didn’t know anything about the catering scene in Boston, but I was willing to bet that they had just one or two places that could serve food there. “Why <em>you</em>, though?”<br/><br/>“Beats me,” Kit said. “It’s something about some kind of government parahuman conference. Set in Boston, but some guy from here in the Bay was the one talking to me.” She shrugged. “With the money I’m going to be making off of this, though, who <em>cares</em> why they picked me?”<br/><br/>I nodded. I liked Kit too much to call the rates she charged for out of city mileage extortionate, but she would be making a good chunk of the expenses for all of this just on the drive to and from Boston.<br/><br/>Well, hell, if someone wanted to shell out this kind of money for Kit’s cooking, who was I to complain? I just needed to make sure that they got everything they ordered. I finally got around to getting my apron on and joined Kit as she muttered to herself and tapped a sheet, planning out what we were going to need to get ready before- wow, just a week away? Maybe it was a <em>good</em> thing that business had dried up a bit if we were going to be filling an order this big by then.<br/><br/>“Regional Conference on Parahuman Law Enforcement,” I read out loud, deciphering some of the abbreviations Kit had used on the note pad. “Think there are going to be a bunch of capes there? In costume?”<br/><br/>“Probably,” Kit said, glancing up at me, her green eyes glittering with anticipation and happiness. “I’ll be bringing my autograph book. You?”<br/><br/>“Just my winning smile,” I said, showing Kit an example of it.<br/><br/>“I’d prefer if you also wore clothes,” Kit said, straight-faced.<br/><br/>I laughed, even as my mind seized one of the more important facts of what I had just heard. There were going to be capes there. I sucked power away from capes. It only happened quickly in fights, sure, but catering a conference was likely to take a good three, four hours or so. Was I going to end up with a bunch of powers? A bunch of <em>heroic</em> powers? Did I want that many powers? Was there going to be someone there who could read my aura or something and find out what I could do? Oh <em>boy</em>, that was a whole lot of thinking that was suddenly running through my head. And it was a bunch of questions that I didn’t really have answers to, beyond ‘wait and see’.<br/><br/>So, well, I supposed I was going to have to wait and see. And spend the next few days chopping up meat and veggies for the sandwich platters they had ordered. Either this was going to be the biggest event Kit and I had ever hosted, or they were anticipating some <em>really</em> big eaters. Or maybe both. Hadn’t there been an interview with Gulper where he had shared a story about being banned from every buffet in Duluth?<br/><br/>Right now, I just needed to put in a few hours of making food. And then there were my evening plans. And <em>boy</em>, was I unsure about those.<br/><br/></p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>I couldn’t put this off any longer. Heck, I had probably put it off for too long already. It was time to bite the bullet and go and meet ‘Yuri. She had certainly been texting me often enough. I wondered if I should write a will leaving all of my stuff to Mom.<br/><br/>I was wearing a nice dress, one that made me look cute, but was a bit fancier than what I had worn to the club a few nights ago. We were meeting at a restaurant, a Japanese place called The Happy Duck. Oddly enough, they didn’t have duck on their online menu.<br/><br/>I had been thinking for a while about how best to get out of this. How best to let Yuri know that I wasn’t really interested in dating a criminal. But it was hard to think of how to put that thought into words, let alone words that didn’t scream that I knew who she was and what she could do. I still hadn’t come up with a good idea and now it seemed that I was going to have to think on my feet to get through all of this.<br/><br/>I took a deep breath before stepping through the doors. I looked around and found ‘Yuri’ pretty easily. She was sitting away from the windows, back to the wall. She actually looked happy when she saw me, although her happy was still pretty removed from puppies and sunshine.<br/><br/>I sat down across from her and weakly smiled back. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she ran a hand through her short, glossy, black hair.<br/><br/>“Good to see you again, Ramona,” ‘Yuri’ said. “I was starting to think that you had forgotten all about me.”<br/><br/>“That hardly seems possible,” I said, meaning every word. “You left quite the mark in my mind.”<br/><br/>“You and <em>many</em> other people,” Yuri said with a small smile that didn’t really seem that happy. “So, what have you been up?”<br/><br/>“Oh, just working at my job baking and cooking,” I said. Which was true enough, although still a <em>massive</em> lie of omission. Well, if Mom didn’t know what I was doing out on the streets, there was no reason for Yuri to know either.<br/><br/>“Wearing a maid outfit?” Yuri asked, taking a sip from the cup of tea in front of her as a waiter handed me a menu.<br/><br/>“For a catering company, not some rich dude,” I said, rolling my eyes and shaking my head.<br/><br/>“What a pity. I think you’d look good in a maid costume, tending to your mistress’s needs,” Yuri said, which was about as subtle as a baseball bat to the face.<br/><br/>“So what would you recommend?” I asked, changing the topic in about as blunt of a manner as pulling the fire alarm.<br/><br/>“When I was here before, I had the beef yakisoba,” Yuri said. “But I also heard that the sukiyaki is also very good.”<br/><br/>The topic moved on to other, safer topics than me wearing a fetish costume. And I discovered that I was actually enjoying myself as I was talking to Yuri. I didn’t <em>want</em> to enjoy myself, I wanted to make it clear that things weren’t going to go any further between us and I wasn’t going to see her again. (Except as Sentinel and whatever cape name she ended up taking.)<br/><br/>But, somehow, as she talked about being half white and half Japanese, and I talked about being half Mexican and half Japanese, I actually found myself warming up to her. I was seeing her as being an actual, you know, person, instead of the scary lady I had seen on the news. It wasn’t the greatest of all possible feelings, quite frankly. Kind of worrying, when I got down to it.<br/><br/>And, of course, there was the issue of my arousal. I was getting kind of horny, especially as Yuri kept on making some shameless innuendos about me. They were never crass and sometimes they were actually pretty witty. I got the feeling she thought <em>all</em> of them were witty, of course.<br/><br/>And she was pretty, of course. That counted for a lot, even though I didn’t think I was <em>that</em> shallow. But still, as the evening went on, I found myself getting more and more attracted to her. I wished I could blame this on some weird kind of power, but I <em>really</em> didn’t think that was the case. It was a lot more likely that the reason was that the sex with her had been fun and that I hadn’t been getting anything besides my hand for <em>quite</em> a while now.<br/><br/>And just like I couldn’t blame this on her power messing with me, I couldn’t say that I was sticking around to get even more of her mad-science powers. Because I wasn’t getting anything from her.<br/><br/>It was funny, but I couldn’t feel anything from her. The sensation when my power was drinking at another cape’s was pretty hard to describe and not very strong, but it was still something I <em>could</em> feel. But I wasn’t feeling anything at all from her. I wasn’t sure how to make my power reach out and try to drink from her and I wasn’t going to try, either. Who <em>knew</em> what would happen then.<br/><br/>Had I overloaded or something on Cricket? I had thought I hadn’t been getting anything from Triumph because I was <em>trying</em> not to get anything from him. But if my power was stuffed or overheated or whatever, maybe nothing would have happened on its own. I supposed I’d have to see if anything changed in a few days.<br/><br/>Well, whatever the reason, the <em>result</em> was that I had to face the facts and admit that my hormones were driving me around right now. That was a little secret I wasn’t going to be sharing with anyone else, especially because <em>knowing</em> I wasn’t thinking with my head and not doing anything about it was a lot more embarrassing than not knowing at all.<br/><br/>At any rate, I wasn’t at all surprised when Yuri suggested that we head back to her apartment. And even though I <em>knew</em> I should say no, due to the whole supervillain thing, I ended up saying yes.<br/><br/>It was a pretty nice apartment in a pretty nice neighborhood. Predominantly Asian, of course. But I couldn’t see many signs of the ABB, which was a tad surprising. But not <em>bad</em>, not in the slightest.<br/><br/>The apartment itself was also nice, although in a pretty raw, unfinished way. Some packing material shoved off in one corner was a <em>really</em> big clue about just how recently Yuri had moved in here. She didn’t spend much time showing the place off before she was kissing me, though.<br/><br/>It was pretty nice to kiss Yuri. Frankly, I probably would have been fine with kissing almost anybody, but Yuri was the girl in front of me, pressing up against me as we locked lips, standing right in the doorway of her (unused) kitchen. She was getting pretty handsy pretty quickly and I was left wondering if I was going to get stripped naked right here in the kitchen. And if her repeated comments about a maid costume meant that she actually had one prepared in my size (creepy enough I’d be leaving immediately) or if that was just her fetish.<br/><br/>As it turned out, we actually got all the way to her bedroom before she got anything off of me. I returned the favor, as best as I could, and pretty soon we were both in our underwear, rolling around on the bed, kissing and making out.<br/><br/>I was feeling <em>horny</em> and was really looking forward to this. Well, not the kissing and the touching exactly. It was more the orgasm I was anticipating. But that would come, soon enough. And the kissing and stuff helped me to get there.<br/><br/>Yuri pulled back from me, putting herself on top of me (of course), propping herself up on her arms and staring down at me. I looked back up at her, heavily breathing in and out. There was a twitchy, aching feeling inside of me, something that made me want a whole lot more than what I was getting. Man, I hoped Yuri wasn’t into orgasm denial or something. Because she would be <em>very</em> disappointed in what happened.<br/><br/>Instead, she reached over to a drawer on the table right next to the bed and pulled it open. I couldn’t see what was inside, but I could hear some clanking as she rummaged through it.<br/><br/>“I’m expected to do work while at work, most unfairly,” Yuri said. I wasn’t entirely sure if she was joking or not. “So I haven’t had time to build anything <em>fun</em>.” She pulled out a vibrator wand. I swallowed as she flicked it on and the hum filled the room. “But I’m still a good enough judge of quality to pick out only the best mass-produced stuff.”<br/><br/>“I took you as a connoisseur of artisanal sex toys,” I said, staring at the pink shaft and feeling the muscles in my legs tensing up. Oh boy, here we <em>went</em>. Here we go? Here we were going to go? Whatever. “If that thing’s as strong as it sounds, you better take some good care using that on me.”<br/><br/>Also, the line about her making her own sex toys… man, that was <em>not</em> a thought I wanted to have while I was in the mood. Sex bomb might have been the name of a song or something, but I did <em>not</em> want to have any kind of bomb going off in my pussy. I was funny that way.<br/><br/>“Just wait and see what I can come up with when I have some time to myself,” Yuri said, flicking the toy on and off and cycling it through a few different settings, making the hum rise and fall. “You’ll be amazed at what I can do to you.”<br/><br/>Yes, yes I certainly thought that might be the case. Seeing a huge explosion might be amazing, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be at Ground Zero. But that <em>really</em> was something to worry about later.<br/><br/>A thought that was confirmed when Yuri lowered the toy against my thigh and my world started to revolve around the humming head pressing against my skin. I breathed in and out, feeling my blood start to race. Okay. Ok<em>ay</em>, that was a sensation. I bit my lip and tried not to moan too much as I felt the sexual energy filling me up.<br/><br/>Yuri was enjoying this, I could tell. The smug look on her pretty face as she rubbed the wand back and forth against me, making me twitch and gasp was really <em>her</em>. It was the kind of look I expected from someone like her, that was what I was trying to say.<br/><br/>She was moving the toy up and down along my legs, getting pretty close to my pussy before switching over to the other leg or going up to my pussy. I bit my lip, not wanting to give in and start begging. I had <em>some</em> pride and self-respect, after all. I could be a top from time to time, instead of the subbiest sub who ever subbed.<br/><br/>Also, this was still feeling good, although it would feel <em>really</em> good if she put the toy where it belonged. As it was, I was still twitching around on the bed, watching my green panties grow a damp spot right at the center of them as my pussy kept on leaking. Oh well, that was what the laundry machine was for.<br/><br/>“Better remember the Golden Rule, Yuri,” I said with a moan. “If you keep on teasing me like this, then when it’s <em>my</em> turn, you’d, ah, better…” I trailed off as she finally moved the toy up until it was almost pressed <em>directly</em> against my pussy. If I bucked my hips a bit… “Oh man that feels good.”<br/><br/>“Sex feels good? Amazing, I should make a note of that,” Yuri said with a smirk on her face as she moved the toy around a bit more, giving me some, but not all, of what I needed. “And don’t you worry, Ramona. I’ll show you <em>exactly</em> how I expect you to take care of me.”<br/><br/>I could remember some of that from the club. I looked her in the eyes and stuck out my tongue, running it along my lips in a pretty provocative display. It was a message she received loud and clear, since she grabbed my hand and lifted it up to her breast. I tugged her bra away and then started to play with her breast, groping it. It felt nice, although probably not as nice for her as she was making me feel.<br/><br/>“Oh, and if you’re ever on top,” Yuri said, “that will be because I’m holding onto the leash as you bounce up and down on my strap-on.”<br/><br/>I rolled my eyes at that. There was being a top and then there was trying too hard.<br/><br/>Man, this was some of the best sex I had had in… ever, maybe? Not really where I had expected the night to go, but now that it was happening, well, who could complain? I was going to enjoy myself and have as good of a time as I could.<br/><br/>And make sure that Yuri had a good time as well. Just because she was probably a bad person was no reason for her to have bad sex. Especially when she was giving me some pretty good sex, now that the vibrator was pressing against me a lot more firmly. I looked her in the eyes and smiled. And she gave me a pretty charming smile right back.<br/><br/>And I was even pretty sure that Yuri was going to let me walk out of here tomorrow morning. Because there was no way I was up for getting all the way back home by myself <em>this</em> late at night. Mom would understand.<br/><br/>Man, this had been a <em>packed</em> twenty-four hours.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Seven</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>Taylor was glad that she had spent her exercise time learning how to run instead of weight lifting. Brockton Bay was <em>big</em>, bigger than it seemed just by looking at a map or from the seat of a car. And as many people as lived in it, it was still <em>empty</em>.<br/><br/>At least, empty of who she wanted to find. Was that proper grammar? Eh, who cared. The important thing was that Taylor had spent four hours looking for Jester and hadn’t found anything. Just like last night and the night before that.<br/><br/>Taylor wasn’t sure if she was going to fight Jester or talk to her when she finally found the other woman. She supposed it would depend on if Jester turned out to be a villain who had intentionally maimed Glory Girl like that, or if it had somehow been a horrible accident. And it would <em>really</em> have to be quite the accident to excuse what had happened.<br/><br/>But talking or fighting both relied on Jester <em>being</em> there and she wasn’t. Taylor had hit up every place in the city she could think of and hadn’t found a thing. She wasn’t even sure if Jester was still in the city or not. Of course, if she had run away, well, that was a pretty villainous thing to do, right? Not owning up to the consequences of your actions?<br/><br/>Well, whether or not Jester was still in the city, she wasn’t on the streets. Taylor was sure she would have found her by now if she was, with both her looking in person and online. And Taylor was getting sore, her backpack with her civilian clothes was a mile away and she didn’t have the money on her to hire a taxi. It was time to go <em>home</em>.<br/><br/>Sighing, Taylor started back towards the alley she had left her clothes in. She needed some sleep. After all, there was, ugh, <em>school</em> tomorrow.<br/><br/>Before Taylor had gotten more than half a block, she felt something odd pass through a cloud of gnats at the very edge of her range. She frowned, turning to look even though she couldn’t possibly see through the buildings blocking her view <em>or</em> that far when it was this dark out. It was an odd something but that was as much as she could tell.<br/><br/>Her curiosity piqued, Taylor turned down an empty (and rank) alley, wanting to see what was going on. As she jogged down the alley, more and more of her bugs came in range. She frowned underneath her silk mask as she got a clearer picture of what was going on. She wasn’t sure <em>what</em> was going on, but at least she had enough bugs around to be informed and confused.<br/><br/>There were two people on the back of a… beast. Rhinos didn’t live in Brockton Bay and it wasn’t really shaped like a rhino, but Taylor couldn’t think of anything else that would be this <em>big</em>. And they were… fighting, yeah, that was a punch. They were fighting somebody who could knock the beast over with a punch.<br/><br/>A <em>cape</em> battle. That got Taylor moving a bit faster. She wasn’t able to tell who was who or why they were fighting. Not from here, at least. She was going to need to actually <em>see</em> them before knowing who she should help. She just hoped that the fight lasted that long.<br/><br/>It did. Taylor peeked around an alley wall to see the duo and their pet fighting someone with such a bright, bold costume that he <em>had</em> to be a hero. Not one that Taylor recognized, but that didn’t mean a lot. And he was losing, the beast’s dog-like jaws snapping at him and thick paws slamming through the air. And he was having trouble keeping his balance anyway. Was he already wounded or something? Was that why he kept on stumbling?<br/><br/>Taylor winced as she watched him stumble, something the beast took full advantage of. In a flash, it was on top of him, jaws flashing open. A scream rose in Taylor’s throat, only to come out unformed as the young hero grabbed the jaws and somehow managed to use the grip to twist himself out of the way.<br/><br/>Taylor squeezed her hands together into fists as she watched. The two people on top of the beast were a man and a woman. Or maybe a boy and a woman. He seemed to have a pretty slender build, although the distance and movement made it hard to tell and Taylor wasn’t going to send bugs down his shirt just to figure out how to describe him.<br/><br/>He was wearing a kind of creepy masquerade mask and a fancy outfit, while the woman was wearing normal, tough clothing with a cheap Halloween dog mask thrown on top. Even Taylor’s costume had cost more to put together. But neither of them looked heroic and Taylor could hear the boy laughing as he pointed at the hero.<br/><br/>That settled things for Taylor. She took a deep breath and tried to figure out how she was going to do this. She didn’t want to get close to that beast. The hero obviously had some kind of super-strength or something and she could see rips in his purple costume and what had to be blood. Taylor wasn’t any tougher or stronger than him. She needed to stay <em>way</em> back and not get up close.<br/><br/>So that meant using her bugs. Taylor started to draw almost everything she had towards the fight. Underneath her mask, she bit her lip, before deciding to include hornets and spiders as well. The non-flying insects would take a long while to arrive, but maybe the fight would last that long.<br/><br/>And the flying bugs better arrive quickly, because the beast had turned its head to look at her. Taylor swallowed heavily as she locked eyes with the giant mutated animal. And now the riders were looking at her as well. Oh, not good.<br/><br/>The boy stuck a hand out and all of a sudden, Taylor’s leg gave out, sending her sprawling forward, going to her hands and knees as she tried to figure out what the <em>hell</em> had just happened. It was like very muscle in her left leg had just spasmed, like she had been hit with a jolt of electricity.<br/><br/>“Fuck off!” The woman called, her voice a surly growl that was made more intimidating by the beast she was riding growling at Taylor.<br/><br/>“No way!” Taylor responded, climbing to her feet. “You leave him alone!” She pointed at the hero, who was hunched forward, resting one hand on his knee as his overly-large shoulders rose and fell. “What do you think you’re doing?”<br/><br/>“Delivering baked goods to the old ladies,” the boy called out, a laugh intertwined with her words. “Can’t you tell?”<br/><br/>“Shut up,” the woman growled at her companion. “Take care of her.” Her head swung back around to the hero. “Brutus, hurt!”<br/><br/>The beast lunged forward even as the boy tried to get off. He fell flat on his back with a grunt.<br/><br/>And by then, Taylor’s swarm had arrived in large enough numbers to do something with. Taylor sent them diving down onto the boy and the beast, although she wasn’t sure what good honey bees were going to do to something that big and nasty.<br/><br/>As the first few bugs descended on the boy, he tilted his masked face backwards, looking up at the street lights surrounding the empty loading dock they were fighting in. He shook his head and looked back at Taylor. He pointed a silver stick at her and all of a sudden, Taylor went down again, barely able to catch herself. The boy started running at her, holding his stick up like a club.<br/><br/>Taylor sent more bugs at him as they arrived, moving in a straight line down from the rooftops and out from the alleys. His costume covered enough of his body and he wasn’t flinching away from the insects that it was hard to stop him. Taylor was sending biting and stinging bugs underneath his clothes, but that was taking <em>time</em>.<br/><br/>Taylor scrambled to her feet again, backing up and trying to buy herself both time and space. Through her bugs, she could tell that the hero was getting a good number of punches and kicks in on the beast, knocking it around. He wasn’t doing much damage though and he wasn’t able to get up to where the woman was.<br/><br/>So Taylor moved the bugs from the beast, where they weren’t doing anything useful, up to the woman. And that had a lot better effect. The loose clothing she wore let Taylor send bugs inside of her clothes and start stinging and pinching. Taylor hoped that she wasn’t allergic to bee stings or anything, but she didn’t bother hoping <em>too</em> hard. After all, this woman was obviously a villain.<br/><br/>And so was her friend, who had started slapping at himself and staggering in his run as the insects finally started to get in on his skin and bite him. Taylor relaxed slightly as he fell to the ground and the woman swayed heavily from side to side on top of her mount.<br/><br/>When the hero landed a good punch that made the animal’s limb bend in obviously the wrong way, they had enough. The woman wheeled her mount around with a harsh whistle and it started to bound across the asphalt square. Taylor scowled sending more and more bugs to her, not wanting her to get away.<br/><br/>And she didn’t. Halfway across the square, the woman overbalanced and fell to the ground, pretty hard, too. The beast whirled around and looked confused, sniffing the air almost like a dog. It wasn’t being hurt by Taylor’s bugs, though and she didn’t think it would unless she went for an eye.<br/><br/>The boy wasn’t doing too hot either, on the ground, writhing around. He was crushing a lot of insects, but Taylor had plenty to spare. She smiled in a <em>very</em> nasty way as she watched him, before lifting her gaze to stare at the hero.<br/><br/>He was slowly walking towards her. His eyes were fixed on her and Taylor took a deep breath. Okay, time to meet another hero. <em>Another hero</em>. It somehow didn’t quite seem real to hear herself say that. Taylor smiled widely underneath the mask even as the beast started to howl.<br/><br/>“Thanks for the help,” the hero said. Taylor started in surprise, realizing that he couldn’t be much older than her, even though his costume was bulging with a ridiculous amount of muscles, more than should be possible. “I was in kind of a tight spot.”<br/><br/>“Oh, no problem at all,” Taylor said, nodding her head up and down. “I couldn’t stand by and watch. Heroes are supposed to help each other out, right?”<br/><br/>“Oh, so you <em>are</em> a hero,” he said, sounding a bit relieved. “I was wondering with all…” he waved a hand at Taylor. “That.”<br/><br/>Taylor winced at that. She was <em>going</em> to buy some light-colored dyes to break up the grey of her costume. She just hadn’t yet. But that would <em>happen</em>.<br/><br/>“Yeah, I’m a hero,” Taylor said, only sounding a little stiff as she crossed her arms. “And you are…?”<br/><br/>“I’m Browbeat. Nice to meet you,” Browbeat said, sticking his hand out.<br/><br/>And now Taylor was on the spot. She hadn’t come up with a name yet. She didn’t even have a short list of names that she was mulling over. So she said the first insect-related thing that came to mind.<br/><br/>“I’m Silk,” she said, taking Browbeat’s hand and shaking it. She couldn’t see the expression on his face but she could see him tilt his head. “I’m thinking of changing it, though.”<br/><br/>“That… might be a good idea,” Browbeat said. “Anyway,” he said, relaxing the tight grip he had used on Taylor’s hand. “The two of us did good.” He waved at the two villains. Taylor had stopped stinging them a while ago, only doing it again if they made any big movements. “Real good. I couldn’t have done it on my own.”<br/><br/>“So, um, what do we do now?” Taylor asked, looking at the scene. The beast had padded over to its mistress and was growling deep in its throat as it looked at the two of them. “Can you get rid of that thing so we can properly arrest them?”<br/><br/>“I’ve never felt great about kicking dogs,” Browbeat said underneath his breath. That thing was a <em>dog</em>? “I could give it a try but it wouldn’t be easy, even without Hellhound bossing it around.”<br/><br/>“We still beat them, though,” Taylor said, weighing the merits of calling the police or the Protectorate to come in to finish the fight and take the credit. “Heh, I can’t believe it!”<br/><br/>“It’s a good feeling,” Browbeat said, turning back to Taylor. “Listen, Silk, you want to make this a thing for us? Teaming up to fight crime and villains together?”<br/><br/>Taylor thought that over for a minute. She hadn’t wanted to join the Wards. But Browbeat wasn’t <em>in</em> the Wards, was he? He didn’t have a bunch of friends around to hang out with and not snub or exclude Taylor. There was just going to be him.<br/><br/>And while Taylor already had a thousand sets of eyes watching her back, a second pair of hands could be <em>really</em> useful. Taylor couldn’t see anything but upsides to this.<br/><br/>“Yes, I’d like that,” Taylor said with a smile, nodding her head up and down eagerly. “I’d like that a lot.”<br/><br/>“Then we’re a team,” Browbeat said. From his voice, there had to be a smile underneath his purple mask.<br/><br/>The founding member of a team, huh. That was quite the thought. A thought Taylor really liked.<br/><br/>Who cared about Jester, when something this good had happened instead?</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>It was a good thing that Kit didn’t let anyone else drive her van if there was <em>any</em> possible way to avoid it. It meant that I could sleep the entire way, chin propped up on one hand and eyes shut, listening to the muted Johnny Cash lyrics as Kit navigated down the interstate to Boston. I was napping so soundly that I wasn’t even tempted by the smell of the food from the back half of the van. I just <em>slept</em>.<br/><br/>Being a hero (now that I was <em>winning</em>) was fun. Not <em>going clubbing</em> fun, but more the kind of enjoyment you got from doing something difficult well. It was a nice experience. Really nice. Was playing hell on my sleep schedule, though, so I was <em>really</em> glad that I was getting a chance to nap and that Kit wasn’t much of a talker behind the wheel.<br/><br/>I had to properly wake up once we got into Boston. The stop-start-stop of the van as it hit intersection after intersection just wasn’t the kind of thing you could sleep to. I lifted my head and blinked, staring at the buildings around me. They were cleaner than you tended to get in most parts of Brockton Bay and I didn’t see as many homeless people on the sidewalks.<br/><br/>“Wakey wakey,” Kit said distractedly as she peered down at the directions taped to the dashboard and then up at the street signs. “How do you feel?”<br/><br/>“Ready to earn my paycheck,” I said, stretching as much as I could inside of the van. “We almost there?”<br/><br/>“Five more minutes,” Kit said before she frowned. “I think.”<br/><br/>I nodded and looked around. It had been a while since I had been to Boston. Maybe I should have asked ‘'Yuri' about any sights to see here. It was pretty hard to miss the Boston accent in her voice. Maybe I should ask her about Harvard and clam chowder sometime.<br/><br/>The thought of 'Yuri' brought a small smile to my face and a small pit of worry to my stomach. But I didn’t have time to think any more about what I felt about her, as we pulled into the underground parking garage of a big conference center. I let Kit handle the security as I got out and stretched, stepping away from the blue-shirt who was looking underneath the van.<br/><br/>Pretty soon, we were in the freight elevator, crammed against the walls with a bunch of portable ovens and racks taking up the center. I glanced at Kit, trying to figure out where she was keeping her autograph book and if she was going to get to fill up another page today. Then I tugged at the black and green outfit I was wearing, the same one that Kit had on. Man, we were making a lot of money off of this gig, but I still didn’t like having to dress up. I was glad that most of the events Kit had me go to were fine with just having the help in regular clothes.<br/><br/>There weren’t any heroes hanging around in the corridor for Kit to get a signature from and there also wasn’t anyone else. So we had to make several trips, hauling all of the food into the kitchen next to the set of conference rooms that were going to be used. And staying out of the way of the <em>main</em> kitchen crew, who were handling about two-thirds of the food while we handled the overflow they hadn't been able to provide for.<br/><br/>This was the highest profile thing I had ever done and I was a <em>bit</em> nervous. About that and also about if I was going to explode from draining a bunch of heroes dry and leave the better part of three states completely and utterly defenseless. I tried to put it out of my mind as I got to work, helping Kit get things set up and food warmed up.<br/><br/>I could hear, through the double doors at one end of the kitchen, the sound of a bunch of people talking. Well, this conference had been going on for a while now. And it would keep on going on until pretty late in the afternoon.<br/><br/>“Damn, Ramona,” Kit said, rubbing her back. “You’ve been working out? You’re <em>juggling</em> those things.”<br/><br/>I looked down at the four-inch-high metal pans full of food I was holding. They were heavy, yeah, but they weren’t putting a strain on my arms. Even though they probably should be, at least to the point where I shouldn’t be waving them around so casually.<br/><br/>“Oh, um, I guess so?” I said, even as I started to worry about having somehow accidentally outed myself to Kit.<br/><br/>…As a <em>cape.</em> I had mentioned that I was bi to her at least once.<br/><br/>“Heh, maybe I should start lifting those sacks of flour instead of pawning it off onto you,” Kit said, shaking her head as she grunted, lifting up a tray full of mashed potatoes with both hands. “Gives you a nice workout, I guess.”<br/><br/>“I guess,” I said, wondering if it was too late to pretend that I wasn’t that much stronger than she was.<br/><br/>It had to be some lingering benefits from Circus. Nothing else made sense. Oh, and probably Cricket as well. That would explain how I was so smoothly dancing around the trays and tables and racks in the small kitchen, even though I couldn’t see my feet with what I was holding.<br/><br/>Well, I wasn’t going to complain! This was just making my job that much easier. I hadn’t really thought that my powers could be used like this in normal life, but if they <em>could</em> be, then I wasn’t going to complain.<br/><br/>Instead, I got to work, helping Kit set things up and keeping an eye on the clock. It wouldn’t do to keep the heroes waiting around for their meals.<br/><br/>We got finished with time to spare, in fact. I licked my lips, stopping myself from sampling any of the food that was out on display. There’d be time for that later. At least I <em>hoped</em> there would be. There had been that wedding a few months ago where the clients had wanted us to be there from mid-morning to well after dinner, and they hadn’t left a <em>bite</em> for me or Kit to eat. Hopefully the assembled heroes from all over would be a bit more courteous.<br/><br/>And I was about to find out. The doors at both ends of the room we had turned into a buffet opened and a steady trickle of people started to pour in. Some of them were in superhero costumes, some of them were wearing suits and pretty much all of them were talking to one another as they got themselves set up, grabbing plates and forming nice, orderly lines.<br/><br/>I could recognize a few of the heroes. Some of them, like Armsmaster, were from Brockton Bay. And others I could recognize just from being generally famous, like Skyclad, who, uh, wasn’t wearing a hero outfit <em>or</em> a suit. I blushed and looked away. After him, the most visually unusual one (and there was some <em>stiff</em> competition there) was a guy who looked a bit younger than me, actually. It was a bit hard to tell, though, since he seemed to be made out of living metal, somehow.<br/><br/><br/>I made myself look away and focus on what I was actually being paid to do here. All of the food was still at safe levels, so there was no need to run anything more out. So I could just stand here and watch some famous heroes (and whoever the suits were) just acting like normal people, talking and joking with each other as they stood in line. It was nice to see, a kind of humanizing moment.<br/><br/>I wasn’t the only one to think so, as someone with brightly colored and dyed hair who just <em>screamed</em> PR was roaming around the room with a camera. Well, if she wanted a picture of me, I’d be glad to pose for her, but I wasn’t going to photobomb a bunch of heroes. Especially not the large, intimidating man in a fur-covered costume she was talking to.<br/><br/>I glanced at the other catering crew, who were mostly clustered together and doing pretty much what I was doing. They looked a lot more professional than I did in their matching uniforms, but I was certain that the food we were putting out there was just as good as what they had.<br/><br/>It was good that everyone was getting along as they ate. Also, and a <em>lot</em> more importantly, I wasn’t eating them! I wasn’t feeling anything at all from my power, even though I was surrounded by more capes than I had ever been near in my life. My power must <em>really</em> be full if it wasn’t going after anything or anyone here. <em>Good</em>. This way, I could relax and not worry about any of the nightmares that had come to me actually happening.<br/><br/>Instead, I could focus on doing my bit to help everyone here out. Mostly that meant being ready with a broom and pan for when stuff went onto the floor by accident. Although I did manage to snag one of Kit’s <em>amazing</em> garlic breadsticks that had melted butter drizzled on top of it. Sure, we had two more trays waiting in the kitchen, but if word got out about just how good these were, there wouldn’t be <em>any</em> left for me.<br/><br/>“Ramona,” Kit said, giving me a look. She kept on giving me a look even when I broke half of the breadstick off and offered it to her.<br/><br/>“Sorry, boss, but you just make these things too tasty,” I said quietly, wolfing down both halves.<br/><br/>“And you could make them yourself, so leave some for the people who are actually paying for this.”<br/><br/>I nodded and stood against the double doors to the kitchen, watching the crowd go by. This was actually a pretty easy gig! A lot better than parties and funerals, where the person paying for it was <em>paying</em> for it and wanted to make sure they got their money’s worth. Here, it was just the government’s money, so everything didn’t need to be perfect and there was nobody hovering over the two of us.<br/><br/>That made things go nice and smooth. I brought out some fresh dishes, Kit got to chat up a few heroes and even talked one of them into giving her an autograph. It was all going pretty good. And as the break for lunch wound down, everyone staggered off back to their conference room or rooms fat, happy and satisfied. And <em>still having their powers</em>, which was something I found to be <em>really</em> important.<br/><br/>My good mood continued as I hopped back into the freight elevator with a wheeled rack as tall as I was stuffed full of metal pans. That good mood wouldn’t last when it came time to actually <em>clean</em> those pans, of course, but that was a problem for a future Ramona. And Ramona of any time was kind of an idiot, wasn’t she?<br/><br/>I winced a bit at the thought coming back to me. I had not exactly been displaying all of the foresight and prudence that teenagers were known for the past few weeks, had I? Getting into those fights, especially that first fight with Circus, going out without much of a plan, well, I hadn’t been showing off just how smart I was.<br/><br/>I was <em>pretty</em> sure it wasn’t my fault. Victor had been there, the night that Browbeat had rescued me from those skinheads and I had triggered. And he was a brain thief, wasn’t he? Sucked away skill and talent. So maybe he had gotten some of my critical thinking and stuff? That was a very reassuring explanation of why I had, well, done a bunch of the stuff I had.<br/><br/>But the fact that I could realize I had done that stuff meant my brain meats were growing all soft and moist again, right? Also, <em>ew</em>, I was never going to use that metaphor again. Anyway, the important thing was now that I knew I had been acting kind of reckless and impulsive, that meant I could stop myself from doing it in the future. That was how it worked, after all.<br/><br/>Nodding to myself, I stepped out of the freight elevator, grousing a bit as the wheels of the rack hit the raised edge between the elevator and the concrete floor of the parking garage. Okay, this <em>was</em> the right level and that would mean that the van was parked over… there.<br/><br/>I headed towards the van, tugging the cart after me. As I got closer, I started to smell something sharp and chemically. It wasn’t a very <em>nice</em> smell. And as I rounded the tiny white car in between me and the van, I could see a glistening puddle on the floor underneath the van. I paused, the rack continuing on and hitting my back.<br/><br/>I went down to my knees, just in time to see a big fat drop of something fall from the underbelly of the van onto the puddle. I sniffed again and yep, this was a <em>big</em> problem. Kit had insurance, right? Of course she did, you <em>had</em> to have insurance to go out onto the street. Did she have insurance for <em>this</em>? I supposed I was going to find out.<br/><br/>Well, <em>crap</em>, this wasn’t the kind of news I wanted to bring up to her. But it wasn’t like pretending this wasn’t here was going to make it go away. And <em>I</em> certainly wasn’t going to be able to do anything about. I could tinker around with my moped, but that was with <em>tools</em> and I was willing to bet that a van was a lot more complex than a bike. And yes, I had leeched some SCIENCE! powers from 'Yuri', but, again, tools. And Kit probably didn’t want to have her van have some kind of auto-explode function or the ability to fight off a jet plane.<br/><br/>Sighing, I opened up the back of the van and attached the ramp before wheeling the rack up into it. How could I best put this to Kit? Make a joke out of it? Play twenty questions? How <em>did</em> you spin ‘Hey, guess what, we’re stuck in another city because the thing you use to earn your livelihood just bit the dust’?<br/><br/>An answer didn’t present itself on the ride up to the kitchen. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. Okay, maybe I could… yeah, ideas weren’t presenting themselves. Well, time to go ruin Kit’s day. I winced again and went off to find her.<br/><br/>And oh <em>great</em>, she was smiling at some blonde kid in a bright blue dress with armor as she signed the book Kit was holding out in front of her. Now I was going to feel like even <em>more</em> of a jackass when I broke the news to her.<br/><br/>Okay, Ramona, try to look on the bright side. You can… call 'Yuri' and ask just what there is to do in Boston. When you don’t have a car or a transit pass. Yeah, that was going to work out <em>great</em>.<br/><br/>Well, I could find <em>something</em> to do to help somehow. That was just what heroes did, even when they weren’t wearing a mask. And Kit was my friend, anyway. Being helpful went double for my friends.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Eight</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>“Look on the bright side, Kit,” I said, trying to cheer her up as we both watched the lights of the tow truck vanish along the city street. “It’s a free vacation, you know? You were just saying a few days ago about how much you wanted to take some time off.”<br/><br/>Kit <em>really</em> did not seem open to my encouragement. She was rubbing the back of her head, practically pulling on her red hair, as she watched her van (emptied out, obviously, everything stored in the center’s kitchen) turn around a corner and vanish. She was looking <em>cross</em>, but not all the way to pissed-off, at least.<br/><br/>“I can’t believe I got that little brat’s autograph,” she grumbled, crossing her arms underneath her chest and looking <em>really</em> unhappy. “I hope his parents ground the hell out of him.”<br/><br/>I nodded, both to show my support and sympathy and because, yeah, a kid getting in a stupid tussle with one of his teammates that resulted in a car getting busted up was the kind of thing that needed to not happen again. I sighed. I hoped that I was never going to do anything so stupid and pointless with any of the tech I built. At least it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The tow truck driver had said that the van could probably be fixed in a few days. I was pretty sure he’d been holding out for a ‘consideration’ to bump the van up along the work list, but there was no way that Kit was going to shell out even more money to make that happen.<br/><br/>Sure, the PRT was <em>very</em> apologetic about what had happened and were paying for the cost of the repairs and the tow, with a nice bonus on top of that, with the understanding that Kit and I didn’t talk about it. But she still had looked a bit nervous doing the sums for everything. It was just <em>really</em> good that we didn’t have anything scheduled for the next few days.<br/><br/>Because we were both going to be staying on Boston for the weekend. Kit, obviously, wasn’t going to leave her van unattended and I was pretty sure she was going to be spending most of the next few days at the repair shop, trying to loom ominously over the workers. And I was staying around because why <em>not</em>? It could be fun to spend some time in Boston and I had a bit of spending money to go and have dinner at a nice restaurant or something. And maybe get some superhero work put in. That could be nice for my reputation, assuming that, you know, I didn’t make a jackass out of myself.<br/><br/>“So where are we going to be staying?” I asked, looking up and down the street. “They said it was the Four Corners Hotel, but I don’t see it around.”<br/><br/>“Ugh, I hope they have a bar,” Kit said, digging out her phone and typing something into it. “That way,” she said, pointing down the street, in the opposite direction the tow truck had gone. “Come on,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Let’s get today over and done with.”<br/><br/>“Come on,” I said, trying to cheer my boss up. “It wasn’t <em>all</em> bad, you know.” I waved back at the conference center as we walked down the sidewalk. “Think about how nicely the actual lunch went.”<br/><br/>Kit nodded shortly and kept on staring down at the sidewalk. I quietly sighed, trying to think of a way to get her mind off of how the van was busted. That didn’t involve her getting drunk, because that just seemed like so many different kinds of a bad idea. Like, a seriously bad idea, especially if she was trying to watch her wallet.<br/><br/>My other attempts to get her to cheer up bounced off like a rubber ball against a concrete wall as we walked to the hotel. At least it was a nice enough hotel once we were inside. There was even a gurgling fountain in the center of the lobby, with some kids looking at it. Heck, I would have been willing to settle for a motel.<br/><br/>And we even got separate rooms. Which was pretty good, because I wasn’t going to be spending money on a new wardrobe, which, since I hadn’t seen any reason to bring a spare change of clothes or anything, meant that I was going to be sleeping in my underwear and making sure I took some <em>really</em> thorough showers for the next few day as a substitute for laundry.<br/><br/>For now, I just sat down on the bed and slumped backwards, spreading my arms as far apart as they could do and letting my hands hang over the edge of the bed. Man, what a day. What a <em>day</em>. I sure hadn’t been expecting anything like this to happen. And what should I do know?<br/><br/>I could hear Kit’s answer coming through the wall. Well, hopefully by the time I was ready to go to sleep, she’d have seen all of the TV she wanted to. I glanced at the TV remote and decided not to. There had to be something better for me to do than just spend a few hours staring into the boob tube. Like… well, hell, I was a hero, wasn’t I? And Boston had to have a crime problem, though probably not as bad as a one as Brockton Bay had.<br/><br/>That thought might have given me some pause if I wasn’t so bored. After all, the amount of time I had spent wandering around looking for something to do or people to save in the Bay was… considerable. So how much more time would I be spending in a city with a lower crime rate?<br/><br/>But I was bored and ‘Yuri’ hadn’t answered my texts about being stuck down here. So with sightseeing out of the picture, I might as well go and be a hero to somebody. My stomach rumbled and I frowned. Maybe after dinner. Oh, and maybe if I got Kit to join me, she’d be a benevolent boss and pick up the bill.<br/><br/>It was worth a shot, at least.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>An hour later, I sat back down with a thump. That had been some good Mexican food. And since there wasn’t a microwave in the hotel room, I had eaten the entire plate. I was feeling stuffed. Which did present a question. Should I go out and start superheroing it up in Boston, or wait a bit so that I didn’t throw up? Ah, I had plenty of time to digest the meal as I got ready and wandered around.<br/><br/>But how was I going to get ready? I looked down at my waist, where the belt of Tinker grenades very obviously wasn’t. Then I moved my gaze a bit and looked at the shoes that were just fancy enough for to work in, but not really the kind of thing that I wanted to run around in or kick people with.<br/><br/>Should I just call it a night? No, no, I already spent way too much time sitting on my butt back in the Bay. I ought to get out there and show this city what I was made of!<br/><br/>Okay, I was going to go out and be a hero. The question was, <em>how</em> was I going to do that? All I had in the way of fighting stuff was a small canister of pepper spray that Mom had given to me three years ago and that I had never once used. My bombs and stuff were all back home, hopefully hidden away where nobody was going to find them. And the same went for my costume. I didn’t have anything that I was going to be busting out to show off with.<br/><br/>Oh man, was I going to have to go run down to the Protectorate gift shop and buy one of the cheap replica costumes that they had on sale of the <em>actual</em> heroes? Man, talk about <em>embarrassing</em>. I could already think of a couple of different ways that could go badly and the worst was the thought of ending up actually meeting the hero who’s costume I had bought while out on patrol. I’d be wanting the ground to open up and swallow me whole.<br/><br/>Unless… yes, I had it! With a bit of effort, I pulled some clothes out of my pocket dimension. It wasn’t as cool as my regular hero outfit, but it was still close enough to what I had as Sentinel that it was going to have to work.Well, it should, since it was the clothes I had picked out as <em>almost</em> but not quite working for my main costume. I kind of looked like a cheap cosplayer of Sentinel, actually. I made a mental note to myself that the next time I left the Bay, to not have done my laundry beforehand and to give my actual, high-quality costume enough time to dry. As it was, I was just hoping that Mom wasn’t going to go poking around places that she shouldn’t be and that I wasn’t going to have to spin a story about getting an early start on Halloween when I got home.<br/><br/>I undressed and slid into the costume. It was pretty obvious why this wasn’t my number one costume, but it was going to have to do. I was feeling a bit more leery about the mask, which was just one step above a ski mask with holes cut in it like a bank robber. But it was going to have to work, because I didn’t have a lot of other options.<br/><br/>Nodding, I opened up the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony, such as it was. It was about six inches wide, if you counted the metal railing that was there to stop kids from seeing if they were the next Legend. But it was still big enough for me to jump off and make it down to the roof of the next building. And from there, it was a straight shot to an alley that I could easily climb up to get back into the room when the night was over.<br/><br/>And then I was off into Boston, seeing what I could find.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>Well, I had to say that I was generally impressed with Boston! The crime rate sure seemed lower and I hadn’t come across anything that would let me be a dashing hero of justice or anything, but at least there was stuff that I could be entertained by while I was out and about. Not like Brockton Bay at all, where people tended to stay inside at night and couldn’t afford to hang up colorful lights.<br/><br/>I had even gotten asked for an autograph and to share a photo with someone! That was really nice, even if they admitted that they had never heard of me before. It still a nice boost to the old ego.<br/><br/>I had made a big loop through Boston, starting out next to the hotel (obviously) and ending up down along the waterfront. It was a pretty nice place, too, with a small park (like, less than half an acre in size) right along the water edge. You didn’t really get that in Brockton Bay. It was the super managed and commercialized Boardwalk, or it was inner city decay, not much in between. Here, though, I could take a break, have a hot dog and can of root beer I had bought and sit down for a bit while I looked out at the night waves. It was nice.<br/><br/>Not really what I had wanted to do, but still nice. After a while, I stood up, stretched and started looking for something to wrap tonight up. A supervillain or a mugging or, hell, a little old lady who needed help crossing the street. Just something that a hero would do.<br/><br/>And as I wandered along, I got my wish. There was a sudden surge of people along the street, as they got far enough away to be out of danger, but still close enough to get a good look at what was going on. There weren’t a lot of people, maybe a dozen at most, but it was still enough for me to quickly jog down the sidewalk to see what was going on. And there were about three or four people laying on the ground.<br/><br/>They were twitching softly and moaning so they weren't <em>dead</em>, but they didn't look like they were in very good shape, either. There were some other people kneeling above them. The realization that the second set of people were all wearing the same clothes and were the same height and build meant that I barely even realized that they were also going through the first group's pockets and purses.<br/><br/>I paused at the very loose line that marked the circle the fight was taking in. I stared for a moment, trying to get a sense of what was going on. There were… two, okay, yes, two fighters. One of them just had some kind of duplication power, with more and more clones of himself constantly appearing and lasting about as long as a sigh in a stiff breeze.<br/><br/>The other one- hell, this was just some business lady who picked up some karate or something for self-defense. She wasn’t wearing a mask or a costume or anything. Just a nice, lightly-colored business suit. And she was still more or less managing to keep out of the way of the endless tide of barbaric-looking duplicates that were pouring out of the man.<br/><br/>Wait, that was, was, shit, I knew this one. Spree or something close. There had been a news report on him a few months ago about him being wanted for rape. And now I was guessing that he was going to try it again. Not fucking likely, I decided, taking a deep breath.<br/><br/>I charged into the fray. I wasn’t able to circle around to come up on him from behind, instead charging in from the sides. About three clones turned towards me. One of them actually collapsed mid-step without me doing a thing. The other two met me and I grunted as I punched one of them, not holding back a bit. There was no way that these clones could be considered people, not with how quickly they were dying and literally dissolving into sludge.<br/><br/>And even though I had taken down first one and then the other, there were another four heading my way, freshly popped out from Spree and running towards me. I grunted and reached down, glad that I was still holding the pop can I had bought.<br/><br/>“Bombs away!” I called out as I tossed it at Spree’s real body. I grunted a bit as the first clone punched me in the gut, but I was already calling on Cricket’s power to make the can pop open, sending shards of metal every which way.<br/><br/>It made the second wave of clones stagger and Spree yelp in shock and I could see the businesswoman drawing back after delivering a punishing kick to the neck of the clone closest to her. Then I was fighting off another wave, really glad that I had Menja’s power on hand to get big and strong.<br/><br/>The clones really weren’t lasting anytime at all. I didn’t think a single one lasted more than half a minute before it went over, not even twitching, regardless of what I did. But the amount of clones that Spree was pumping out was <em>insane</em>. Both the numbers in each batch and how quickly he could pull up another batch from wherever they were coming from. And there wasn’t the slightest instant of disorientation in any of them. They came into existence and instantly started charging at either me or the woman.<br/><br/>But there was some good news. I could feel that weird sensation that came from feeding on another cape. It seemed that my power getting stuffed wasn’t a permanent thing. So I just needed to outlast this bastard and I was going to <em>win</em> this. And get a power that I wasn’t going to be able to disguise as anything else, but oh well. What <em>mattered</em> was that I was going to stop this scumbag here and now.<br/><br/>I grunted as I kicked one of the clones backwards, sending him flying a group of new clones that had just popped out. They all went bowling over and with any luck, they wouldn’t last long enough to get to their feet. And it got me a bit closer to Spree as he had to divide his attention between both me and the woman. It wasn’t <em>great</em> that he was choosing to focus more and more on me, only sending one or two clones in every batch after the businesswoman, but I supposed that it was better that the hero get attacked than the innocent bystander.<br/><br/>And the plan <em>was</em> working. I could feel the power drain growing and growing as I ate away at Spree’s power. I wasn’t seeing any effects yet, but I was sure that pretty soon, I was going to <em>have</em> him right where I wanted him. Which was a good thing, because this was going to take all night if I had to fight him the normal way. His clones seemed to know martial arts just like he did, though at least the knives they had seemed to have the edge of a rubber spatula.<br/><br/>I grunted as I called on Glory Girl’s forcefield again and just outright <em>destroyed</em> a clone’s entire upper body with a single hit. I winced. Okay, that was <em>not</em> something I was going to do a lot of, because <em>Jesus</em>, if that had been a real person…<br/><br/>The forcefield went down a few seconds later as three clones hit me at the same instant with a combo of kicks and punches. It was enough to bring down the field, but not enough to actually carry through and hit me. I used all the powers I had to dodge through the follow-up attacks and unleash some of my own, sending the bodies flying as I kept on pushing through. I used everything I had to knock them silly, my super strength, my sound manipulation powers, my emotional aura, even a few half-remembered judo lessons to slide around clones and send them crashing into each other.<br/><br/>Spree was actually backing up now. Just a few steps every five seconds or so as another wave of clones flashed into reality and tried to dogpile me, but he was still backing up. Underneath my mask, I grinned. This was going to <em>work</em>. I was going to manage this, I was going to beat a villain with no complications and it was going to feel oh so good.<br/><br/>There seemed to be a funny kind of yellow tinge to everything. It wasn’t very strong and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. But it <em>was</em> there and it was something that I could notice even as I kept on driving Spree back. It didn’t seem to be connected to anything, so I just ignored it and kept on fighting Spree. He <em>wasn’t</em> going to get away from me. Especially not as I used Cricket's powers to dart forward about five yards in a single second, only stopping when a clone popped up right in front of me.<br/><br/>And now the clones were starting to look weak. Well, not weak, really, but there were fewer of them. And they were taking longer to come through from wherever they were. Before they actually materialized, there was a funny blur in the air, like a photo of Spree had been taken and all the colors had been smeared together. I had no idea what would happen if I was inside of one when it actually finished doing whatever it was that it was doing, but I wasn’t going to find out.<br/><br/>Not when there was a clone in arms reach. I grabbed it and tossed it (dead silent, just like every clone had been, no matter what was happening. It was creepy) at the blurs. It passed through without a problem, hitting Spree and making him curse. One failing leg was still inside a blur when it snapped into focus.<br/><br/>And there was no gross kind of body horror, either. The new clone was just driven forward, stumbling like it had been kicked in the back. I sighed in relief before I almost got swarmed by the new and existing wave of clones.<br/><br/>I just needed to hold out a little while longer. As I fought, I turned around far enough to see the businesswoman. She had her hands folded in front of her pale yellow suit and was watching us, a collection of still Spree clones littered all around her. She gave me a very slight nod as I glanced at her before turning back to the clones that were still up on their feet.<br/><br/>But not for long. I could <em>feel</em> my power gnawing away at Spree, and it was obviously having the right effect. He was shaking his head back and forth and the clones weren’t forming any faster. I just needed a little bit longer…<br/><br/>And I wasn’t at all surprised when I managed to reach out and grab his costume, feeling the leather and fur through my gloves as I <em>yanked</em> him towards me. Spree let out a very unmanly shriek as he got pulled towards me, which trailed off into a breathless grunt as I buried a fist in his stomach. Not at anywhere near my full strength of course, because I didn’t want to kill him. But it still knocked the fight out of him.<br/><br/>I couldn’t tell for sure if no more clones were popping into existence because he didn’t want to put up a fight anymore or because I had finished draining him of his power. I certainly <em>felt</em> full, like the tank inside of my mind was filled all the way back up again. I stepped around him so that I could see the woman while still keeping Spree in sight, just in case he was faking somehow.<br/><br/>“Are you alright?” I asked the woman, who was standing very still as she looked at the two of us. The clones around her were starting to melt into a nasty-looking sludge, just like the ones I had fought.<br/><br/>“Yes, thank you,” she said calmly. <em>Damn</em>, that was a lot of composure. I didn’t think that there was a single strand of hair out of place on her. “I wasn’t sure what I would have done without someone coming to my aid.” She looked at the loose fringe of bystanders surrounding us, some with their phones out, with a look of patrician disgust on her face. “Especially someone I had never heard of before.”<br/><br/>Was she in the PRT or something, to stay this calm right after she had been attacked? Heck, was she the PRT director here? I <em>thought</em> it might be a woman, but I really wasn’t sure.<br/><br/>“Not a problem, ma’am,” I said, smiling underneath my mask. “I just did what any hero would have done. Sentinel, at your service.” I did what I could remember of a proper curtsy, even though I wasn’t wearing a skirt.<br/><br/>“I see,” the woman said. “Again, thank you for your help. I expect you won’t need to make a habit of it, though.” There was a look on her face like she was almost amused, having a joke at my expense. If she was, though, I certainly couldn’t make out the punchline.<br/><br/>“Um, saving people in trouble is just what a hero does,“ I said, acting as confident and as cool as I could. “And don’t worry, I’ll keep on protecting people no matter where I am!”<br/><br/>The woman, who I realized hadn’t ever introduced herself, nodded and smiled again. Then she backed up. I looked down the street as I heard some sirens and saw some flashing lights. When I looked back, she was just flat out gone. Well, <em>huh</em>.<br/><br/>About twenty minutes later, I had dealt with the cops and handed Spree over to them. He was certainly out of it and didn’t have even a single flicker of power left in him. <em>Good</em>. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain that if anybody asked any questions about it, but maybe they wouldn’t! Yeah, I was going to go with that instead of trying to come up with a good plan.<br/><br/>And now that they were gone and the crowd of onlookers had dispersed as well, it was time for me to decide what else I was going to be doing with the rest of my night. Sleep was pretty high up on the list, quite frankly. I stretched and yawned underneath my mask, but I knew that I still had to put at least a <em>bit</em> more work before I could let myself hit the hay. And there was something that been nagging at me all while I had been talking to the cops and then the PRT.<br/><br/>It was about how big Boston was and how I had managed to find a single supervillain on his own, attacking some random executive. I was never good at statistics, but I was willing to bet that the odds of that were low.<br/><br/>There was something kind of suspicious about all of this. Not that I thought that this had been set up or anything. Who, in Boston, would care about <em>me</em>? No, it wasn’t that there was some sinister masked figure in the background pulling the strings that I was thinking about. It was more like…<br/><br/>I had ended up in a <em>lot</em> of fights against only one cape. There was Othala and Cricket, but that was about it for two on one fights and Othala had left sometime during it. And it wasn’t as if there were that many solo capes in Brockton Bay. Almost everybody had friends looking out for them and nobody had more friends than the Empire 88. And yet, I kept on bumping into villains (and Glory Girl) on their own, without any backup. Was that just some fantastic string of luck that was going to run out sooner or later?<br/><br/>Or did my power have another kind of use? Like it was somehow sending out a beacon, drawing other supers in towards me without either of us really knowing about it? Or was it the opposite, and it was guiding me towards fights I could win? Or was I barking up the wrong tree entirely and it really was just nothing more than luck and the next time I went out looking for a fight, I was going to run into Kaiser and… and… whatever other German-named capes he had on call?<br/><br/>Also, even assuming my thoughts about that were correct, how on earth was I going to see if they were right or not? I wasn’t, I decided. I was just going to keep on going like nothing bad was happening, that nothing was fiddling with my mind without me knowing about. If I couldn’t do anything about a problem or even tell if it really <em>was</em> a problem, then it would obviously be best to just ignore it and pretend that it wasn’t happening!<br/><br/>So, what else should I do with my night? Oh <em>right</em>, the power I had scooped up from Spree. Should I do this in my hotel room, where I could give my clone my normal clothes so I wasn’t naked? Because even if it wasn’t <em>me</em> being naked, it still counted!<br/><br/>Then I thought about how thin the hotel room walls notoriously were. Was I going to tell Kit that I was just talking with myself tomorrow morning? I glanced down at my phone and winced. <em>This</em> morning. Okay, find out what this power was like then get some <em>sleep</em>.<br/><br/>Also, what exactly was my power going to do? I had never gotten a complete, one-to-one power transfer from anyone except Circus and Cricket. So what exactly was this copy of Spree’s powerset going to be like? Another good reason to do this in private with nobody I knew around. If the clone or clones started laughing manically about how she or they had been freed from a thousand-year curse and were now able to start conquering the world, I was going to want to take care of this pretty quickly and without anyone asking questions.<br/><br/>On top of a building roof would be best, I decided. I quickly made my way first into an alley and then up along the fire escape until I was on top of some three-story office building or something. There was nobody in sight and nobody could get a really good view on me from any of the taller buildings a few blocks away. Okay, time to see what it was like to have a (evil) clone.<br/><br/>It was as easy as breathing out. There was a slight displacement of air and then there was a clone of me standing right in front of me. Just the one clone, though. I frowned at that, but my power was feeling kind of <em>full</em> and satisfied, like it wasn’t going to be making anything more.<br/><br/>As the clone turned around towards me, I sent a silent prayer upwards that she wasn’t going to have a goatee. And she didn’t! She was just… okay, I didn’t have that kind of befuddled expression on my face, I was sure, but it was <em>me</em>.<br/><br/>“Hey, Ramona,” the clone said, tucking some hair behind her head as she smiled at me.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Nine - Interludes</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>It was a beautiful night, up here in the sky. Most nights up here were nice, unless it was raining. Being able to look down at Brockton Bay spread out beneath her, all the lights glowing a beautiful yellow or white, it was really nice.<br/><br/>It had been a while since Glory Girl had been up here. Her mother and father had both strictly forbid her from doing anything as Glory Girl until they were sure that her powers had come back, completely and utterly. She wasn’t even allowed to fly around as Glory Girl.<br/><br/>Victoria could see the sense in that, in not attracting Purity or some other crook looking to make a name for themselves when she was still so weak. But being able to fly was the <em>best</em>. Victoria knew that she had been driving Amy crazy as she complained about it, but at last she was <em>back</em>. Up in the air, soaring through the sky, feeling the wind trying to tug at her clothing and hair as her forcefield was wrapped around her in a comforting embrace.<br/><br/>At least all of her powers <em>had</em> come back. That was a scary thought, back in those first few days when it seemed like they wouldn’t. That all Victoria would have for the rest of her life was the ability to fly and nothing more. No super strength, no forcefield, no emotional aura, <em>nothing</em> that would let her be a superhero besides a costume and flight.<br/><br/>But now, she was back in business. Or close enough, at least. She <em>might</em> have oversold how fully her emotional aura had recovered, but that wasn’t the most important power she had. Her forcefield was back and with the ability to stop herself from getting hurt and to dish out the punches to bad guys, her parents had signed off on her getting to patrol again, so long as someone was with her, watching her back.<br/><br/>Not with them, since Mom was being swamped at work and Dad was sinking into one of his moods. But the Pelhams were always up for patrolling with their niece or cousin. So here Victoria was, getting to stretch herself out and enjoy the night sky alongside her favorite (and only) female cousin.<br/><br/>Glory Girl sighed softly as she stared down. She thought that she had been quite enough, but her cousin looked over at her.<br/><br/>“Something up, GG?” Laserdream asked, flipping onto her back and folding her hands behind her head as she flew through the air alongside Glory Girl.<br/><br/>“No, just doing some thinking,” Glory Girl said distractedly, as she looked down at city laid out underneath the two teens. “You see anything down there?”<br/><br/>Laserdream flipped around again so she was actually looking down at the city. She shrugged.<br/><br/>“From this high up? No, of course not.” She glanced at Glory Girl. “Do you want to go lower? Or do you want to talk about it?”<br/><br/>Glory Girl sighed. She should. She really knew she should. And if she couldn’t talk it over with her family, who could she discuss it with? She sighed again and nodded, coming to a halt over the city.<br/><br/>Laserdream showed off a bit by assuming a cross-legged position in midair, resting her chin on her hands as she stared at her cousin. Glory Girl tried to get her mind straight and figure out where she was supposed to begin.<br/><br/>“I’ve been thinking about that fight down at the waterfront,” Glory Girl said, not quite looking straight at her cousin.<br/><br/>“You mean the one where,” Laserdream started to say, before Glory Girl sharply nodded. “Right, yeah, makes sense.”<br/><br/>It did make sense for Glory Girl to be thinking about her fight with Jester, but not for the reasons that Laserdream was probably thinking of. That had been the worst she had ever been hurt, hurt <em>really</em> badly. Badly enough that she could have died from it. If Amy hadn't gotten to her, would Glory Girl have lived? Even if she had survived, mundane medicine would probably have kept her in a cast for the rest of the year and she’d never be able to move her leg as freely as before.<br/><br/>After the pain was gone and her parents and Amy had finally left her alone to get some sleep, Victoria had stayed up the entire night, thinking about that pain. And how she had put people in just as bad of pain since becoming Glory Girl. Had they deserved that? They were criminals and Nazis (as if there had ever been a difference between the two in all of history) and they had done some bad shit to innocent people. But did that really mean that it was okay for Glory Girl to take them down as hard as she possibly could while still making sure that they were breathing once she was done with them?<br/><br/>Did <em>anybody</em> deserve to feel that kind of pain?<br/><br/>And that wasn’t even what Glory Girl was mostly concerned with. There was the actual fight she had gotten into with Jester.<br/><br/>“I really just want to find Jester again,” Glory Girl said, not quite looking Laserdream in the face as she ran her hand through her long blonde hair as it billowed in the breeze. “Find her and…” she sighed.<br/><br/>“Are you going to finish that thought?” Laserdream asked, a small smile forming on her face for a minute.<br/><br/>“I don’t know what,” Glory Girl confessed. “Bend her into a pretzel, maybe. Or maybe I should just…” she trailed off again.<br/><br/>This thought had been brewing in Glory Girl's mind for a while, bubbling away and intruding on her thoughts every now and then. This was the first time that it had fully unveiled itself to her but Glory Girl couldn't look away from it.<br/><br/>“I think I made a mistake, fighting Jester,” Glory Girl said, not quite looking at Laserdream.<br/><br/>“You mean beyond getting hurt like that?” Laserdream said with a wince.<br/><br/>“Yeah,” Glory Girl said with a sigh, wrapping her arms around herself.<br/><br/>“You know how my emotional aura can have a weird effect on people?” Glory Girl asked. She actually felt good enough about <em>this</em> part of the story to look at her cousin in the face.<br/><br/>“Oh yeah, like Krieg,” Laserdream said. “He got <em>pissed</em> when you tried to make him piss himself.”<br/><br/>“That’s classy,” Glory Girl said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, I was thinking back to the fight and,” she sighed. “I should have just cut and run once I realized I was losing my powers. But I kept on fighting.”<br/><br/>Laserdream frowned, brow furrowed, thoughts obviously running through her head. She actually figured it out before Glory Girl continued. Her head snapped up and a look of surprise was written all over her face.<br/><br/>“You mean that Jester hit you with your emotional aura and you got pissed off at her so you kept on fighting?”<br/><br/>“Yeah,” Glory Girl said with a sigh. “I don’t even know if she knew that she was doing it. But, hell, you heard what your mom said to me afterwards.”<br/><br/>“That as smart as you are, you should have known when it was time to pull back,” Laserdream said with a nod. “Yeah, that makes sense.” She tapped a finger to her chin. “That makes a lot of sense, actually.” She looked at Glory Girl. “So does that make you feel better, knowing that you weren’t just charging in to Vicky Smash?”<br/><br/>Now it was Glory Girl’s turn to roll her eyes. She shook her head back and forth, her hair swaying from side to side but the forcefield keeping the wind from blowing it out of the loose braid it was in.<br/><br/>“Kind of, but still, Crystal,” Victoria said. “There should have been something else. I should have done something else, I mean.” She sighed. “I kind of made a mess of it.”<br/><br/>“Not as much of a mess as Jester made of you.” Glory Girl winced and scowled at Laserdream's absent-minded remark, who started to pale. “God, Vicky, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”<br/><br/>“No, it’s,” Glory Girl sighed. “It’s fine. I should have thought things through, I suppose.” She looked down at the city, wondering where, on all of those streets, Jester was. “I still want to find her, though.”<br/><br/>“And then what?” Laserdream asked her. “I’ve got your back, you know. But is a fight really something you should be getting into, when she’s already beaten you?”<br/><br/>“I’m not sure I want to fight,” Glory Girl said. “Maybe we should just <em>talk</em>.” She realized she was fiddling with her blouse and pulled her hands away. “She said some things and maybe I should have listened.” She winced. “No, I definitely should have listened.”<br/><br/>Glory Girl became aware that Laserdream was looking at her with quite the expression on her face. She coughed and turned her head away.<br/><br/>“So, what?” Laserdream asked with a shrug of her shoulders. “You’re going to try and make nice with her after she broke your leg like that?”<br/><br/>“I… don’t know,” Glory Girl said with a sigh. “I just want to find her. Maybe then I’ll know what I want to do with her.”<br/><br/>Laserdream opened her mouth to say something and then shrugged.<br/><br/>“Well, good luck with whatever it is that you end up doing,” she said. “I hope it works out for you, Vicky.” She closed the distance between the two of them and laid a hand on Glory Girl's shoulder, giving it a light squeeze as she looked Glory Girl in the eyes. "If you ever need some help, whatever the problem is, I've got your back, okay?"<br/><br/>“Thanks, Crystal,” Glory Girl said with a smile. She stretched and flexed and looked down at the city below the two of them. “Come on, let’s go and do what we came here for.”<br/><br/>Laserdream nodded at that and suddenly started swooping down to the streets below them. Glory Girl followed her, not <em>quite</em> able to keep up with her cousin’s speed. Glory Girl might be weighed down by a lot of thoughts on a lot of stuff, but at least she still knew that even if she had to change how she did what she did, she was still going to <em>do</em> it. Being a superhero was all that Victoria really wanted to be, after all.<br/><br/>And not even Jester was going to take that away from her again.</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>Yuki sighed as she stared out at the night sky. There were so many lights on in the city that she couldn’t even see the stars. There was just a black stretch overhead. There was a metaphor for something in that, but she couldn’t think of what it was.<br/><br/>Instead, she shivered, wondering if she should stay here at the club. It was getting late and she had to be up tomorrow morning to get in to her <em>other</em> job. The body could only go without getting a proper night’s rest for so long and Yuki thought that she was getting near to that limit once again. Another ten minutes out here, waiting for someone, and then she was off home. To her empty, silent house, with nobody there for her. She sighed heavily.<br/><br/>Yuki wasn’t really her name, of course. But there was just no point in using her actual name at a place like this. And after a few years of working here, Yuki had even managed to start thinking of herself as Yuki when she stepped inside, instead of her actual name. It just made things easier to switch off and be Yuki the <em>exotic</em> <em>dancer</em> for a few hours instead of herself.<br/><br/>“Hey there, girl,” a familiar voice said from behind her.<br/><br/>Yuki pasted a happy smile onto her face and turned around. It was Pritt. Yuki had never figured out if that was her first name, last name or real name. Not that it mattered that much. Yuki wasn’t in this line of business to get close, meaningful relations with people. Just to get their money.<br/><br/>“Hello, Pritt,” Yuki said, smiling widely and putting a leg forward, showing off how nice her thighs looked in fishnet stockings. “Nice to see you again.”<br/><br/>“I bet,” Pritt said, chuckling. She looked Yuki over and smiled once again. There was obvious lust in her expression this time. “And extra nice to see my wallet, huh?”<br/><br/>Yuki shrugged. It wasn’t as if she was doing this out of the romance that came from sleeping with strangers for not very much pay. She just had to take what she could get to keep on making sure the bills got paid.<br/><br/>“Let's go find somewhere we can… talk,” Pritt said, laying a hand on Yuki’s arm and moving her along.<br/><br/>Yuki was utterly helpless to resist the strong grip that Pritt had. Pritt was easily the strongest woman that Yuki had ever met. She thankfully didn’t show that off in bed, but the way her muscles moved underneath her skin showed that she took better care of her body than Yuki did and knew how to use it in ways that Yuki had never learned.<br/><br/>Yuki wasn’t sure what, exactly, it was that Pritt did for a living. Some kind of criminal work, obviously, given who ran the club, the way she constantly looked around, checking the exits and examining people and the way she had beaten up a man who had thought that she and Yuki were a double feature. She worked for Coil, but all Yuki had ever seen of Coil were his people coming in to this nightclub and getting a very small discount from the owner as thanks for their <em>protection</em>. The details weren’t something that Yuki knew about. She just knew that almost all of the men and women who fucked her worked for the same, unseen guy. At least it was better than the Empire, she supposed.<br/><br/>“Do you want a dance?” Yuki asked. “Or maybe something a bit more private?”<br/><br/>“I’ve gotten worked up all day,” Pritt said, shaking her head back and forth and nodding towards the door at the back of the night club. “I’m just ready to get down to business.”<br/><br/>“Of course,” Yuki said, sliding down from her spot on the one person dancing stage near the main windows and staggering a bit on her high heels. She had been on her feet for most of the day already. “Follow me.”<br/><br/>It wasn’t a very fancy night club. Or a very fancy brothel, which was what it really was, as anyone who visited it knew. It was just a place where men and women with money could come in, buy some services for a few hours, listen to some music and have a drink. Nothing in it appealed to Yuki, except for the fact that it made her money. And Yuki <em>needed</em> to make money.<br/><br/>Her job at the office, well, it just didn’t pull in quite enough. Maybe if she was higher placed, but she was just a junior clerk in the HR department, doing what she was told. The company didn’t have the money to offer her a raise. In fact, the one time that she had asked for it, her boss had told her that if the company had the money to spare, they’d just be buying some software that would let them fire two-thirds of Yuki’s department, her included, rather than increasing her paycheck. And there weren’t any other jobs in the city for someone with Yuki’s qualifications that would pay any better.<br/><br/>Sometimes, Yuki thought she should just move, out of Brockton Bay entirely, to someplace where there weren’t racist skinheads and there was money to be made. But she had so little saved up that if she moved <em>anywhere</em>, she would arrive without a penny in her pocket. Maybe Yuki would have taken that risk if it had just been herself or if Rafael had still been alive. Of course, of her husband was still alive, they would have two incomes to draw on and they wouldn’t be in this mess.<br/><br/>But there was her daughter. Yuki couldn’t take a gamble like that with someone else on the line as well, not when her daughter had still been in high school when Yuki had been forced to face some ugly facts about her income and expenses. And after a few years, Yuki had gotten stuck in a rut. Or sinking into the mud.<br/><br/>She was still the only one who knew how bad her money situation was. She didn’t want to <em>burden</em> her daughter with this knowledge. That the only reason the two of them weren’t homeless was because Yuki let strangers fuck her for not very much money. The awful shame of that was more than Yuki would be able to bear. So she just got up early and went to bed late and spent almost every hour of the day trying to bring in enough money that they could keep on paying the bills and acting like everything was just fine.<br/><br/>Pritt closed the door behind her. The VIP rooms sure didn’t seem like they belonged to an important person. Every single one of them was small and the management kept the lights low and used an air freshener to cover over the fact that proper cleaning cost money they didn’t want to spend.<br/><br/>Yuki glanced Pritt over. She looked much the same as ever. Taller than Yuki by a hair, probably mixed race, or a white person who tanned <em>really</em> easily. Black hair, brown eyes and the kind of body that came from getting in shape to do something with it than to look good in the mirror. A face that had probably been pretty before something had broken her nose and given her a light scattering of small scars all over one cheek. And dressed in dark clothing that looked like it was designed to fit underneath body armor.<br/><br/>And Pritt was staring at Yuki. Yuki wasn’t sure why Pritt liked her the most out of the various women at the ‘night club.’ There were girls here younger than she was. And with bigger breasts and fuller figures. But she wasn’t going to question it, not when so much of her pay came on a commission basis instead of being paid per hour.<br/><br/>Yuki was wearing fishnet stockings, high heels and a bunny leotard. No ears and the white poof of a tail was attached to the leotard, instead of to her. She knew that some girls were willing to perform with a sex toy buried in their ass, but unless the client paid extra, a <em>lot</em> extra for that, there was no way Yuki was up for that sort of thing.<br/><br/>Yuki smiled and draped herself over Pritt. Pritt wrapped an arm around Yuki’s waist and guided her towards the surprisingly cushy chair that took up most of the VIP room. Yuki was just as glad to sit down on Pritt’s lap instead of the chair. She had seen the number of stains on it once during the day and she ever since, she tried to touch it with her bare skin as little as possible.<br/><br/>Yuki got comfortable in Pritt’s lap and started to kiss her, loosely lacing her hands together behind Pritt’s neck. Pritt returned the favor and quickly ended up dominating the kiss. Pritt was<em> very</em> forceful in bed, though Yuki couldn’t recall that either of them had ever once actually ended up in bed together. Just in one of the chairs, against the wall, on the floor and on one memorable occasion, with Yuki actually getting Pritt off right on the main floor of the club, her cheeks burning the entire time.<br/><br/>As they kissed, Pritt’s hands started to wander across Yuki’s body, squeezing and touching her and making Yuki shiver. As little as she enjoyed this, there still was a certain kind of pleasure to be gotten from it. And Pritt, as forceful and dominating as she was, still payed attention to Yuki’s pleasure as well as her own.<br/><br/>Yuki shivered and did her best to return the favor, feeling Pritt’s muscles flexing underneath her clothes and skin. Pritt was pulling her closer to her body, until they were pressed up against one another, feeling each other. Pritt’s large breasts were rubbing against Yuki’s skin as they kept on kissing, kept on making out, doing everything in their power to make sure that they got to feel good.<br/><br/>After all, just because Yuki didn’t like that she was being forced into being a whore didn’t mean she couldn’t at least find <em>some</em> level of pleasure in what was going on. At least with someone like Pritt, who actually seemed to give a damn about how much Yuki enjoyed the whole thing. Quite unlike a number of her other regulars.<br/><br/>Yuki reached down and grabbed the bottom of Pritt’s shirt. She slowly peeled it off of the stocky woman, revealing well-formed muscles and a few more scars. Pritt had never talked about how she had gotten them, but Yuki was able to recognize a knife wound when she saw one. Or several of them, as the case may be.<br/><br/>“Fuck, you look so hot in that outfit,” Pritt said softly, breaking the kiss to allow Yuki to pull the shirt off of her body. “I could just eat you up, girlie.”<br/><br/>It felt wrong to be called girlie when Yuki was sure she had at least a decade on Pritt. But this wasn’t the kind of job where you said no to a client, unless you had to scream it loudly enough to bring in the bouncer. She just nodded and giggled and kept on undressing Pritt, getting her naked. Pritt helped her out with that, in between copious amounts of groping Yuki’s butt and breasts and thighs.<br/><br/>Yuki was returning the favor as much as she could, of course, as she continued to slowly bare Pritt’s body. It was a bit harder to do so, when Pritt was sitting down on a chair and Yuki was sitting on top of her. But she kept on carrying on and pretty soon got Pritt naked <em>enough</em> to get to work.<br/><br/>“How do you want me?” Yuki whispered in a seductive voice, batting her eyes at Pritt. “Any way you want it, you’ll get.”<br/><br/>“Don’t I always?” Pritt asked with a chuckle, giving Yuki’s ass a firm squeeze that made Yuki squeak as she felt the hand digging in through the leotard. “Let’s see… I think that it would be best if you got down on your knees and went to work.”<br/><br/>Yuki did exactly that, sliding off of Pritt’s thighs and staring at her pussy. Pritt wasn’t much one for grooming down there and it was pretty hairy as a result. Well, Yuki had seen worse. She leaned forward and rested one hand on Pritt’s powerful thigh. She could feel the heat and the surprisingly soft skin.<br/><br/>Then she pushed her head forward and started to eat Pritt out. Pritt hadn’t been joking about how turned on she was. There was a lot of arousal already there and after just a few strokes of the tongue, Yuki’s tongue was already covered with it. The taste was… a taste. At least it tasted better than semen, though that was a low, low bar.<br/><br/>Yuki didn’t offer any commentary, though and just kept on working, doing her best to make sure that Pritt got to feel nice as she licked and sucked and did everything that she could to make sure that Pritt got every scrap of pleasure she could. After all, people who were blissed out on orgasms were better tippers. And Yuki was obviously willing to almost anything to get enough money to stay ahead of the bills.<br/><br/>“Oh yeah,” Pritt said with a sigh, one hand coming down to rest on top of Yuki’s head as the other played with her breasts. “You’re so good at this, Yuki. You were born to lick pussy.”<br/><br/>Yuki made a bit of a face at that. She didn’t even think that she was all that skilled at oral sex, whether it was with guys or girls. But if Pritt liked it, then she liked it. And given how often Yuki ended up eating Pritt out, she <em>really</em> liked getting eaten out.<br/><br/>Yuki would say that oral sex was how she got Pritt off maybe six times out of ten. The other times usually involved her fingers or one of them using a toy on the other. Though the last only happened when it was payday and Pritt was willing to rent a (thoroughly cleaned, at least) sex toy from the night club. Usually a strap-on dildo that one of them used on the other. When Yuki used it, she made sure that she was <em>very</em> slow and careful on Pritt, going at about the same speed and tempo that she used when she was eating Pritt out.<br/><br/>But when Pritt took her for a ride, well, Yuki was always amazed that she wasn’t walking with a limp the next day. When Pritt wanted something, she could <em>get it</em> and she wanted to see Yuki bouncing up and down the shaft like she was on a pogo stick or to see Yuki get bent over the chair and slamming into her like a jackhammer. Yuki still managed to cum from that sort of treatment, oddly enough, but it sure was still an <em>experience</em>, one that Yuki could never really get over feeling.<br/><br/>But right now, thankfully, she just had to eat out Pritt, feel the arousal running down her lips as she did her best. Yuki herself was a bit turned on, but only a bit. There was a heat in her core, but no actual arousal inside of her pussy. Not that it really mattered. She just needed to do her job here and then she could head home for the night.<br/><br/>Yuki did her best and she could tell that her best really was good enough. Pritt was making some moaning sounds and she was starting to rock back and forth, pressing her pussy more firmly up against Yuki’s face. Her hand was still tight on top of Yuki’s head.<br/><br/>“Oh yeah, that’s the stuff,” Pritt said in a soft voice. “Come on, keep it up.”<br/><br/>Yuki kept it up. She angled her head slightly, to get a better position to keep on eating Pritt out. She could feel Pritt’s muscles twitching in her thigh, pulsing underneath her skin. She wasn’t at all surprised when, a few minutes later, Pritt wrapped her leg around the back of Yuki’s head, keeping her trapped in here, doing what she had to do.<br/><br/>Pritt was obviously getting <em>really</em> turned on as Yuki worked. She was making all kinds of sounds, rocking her hips back and forth. Her fingers were squeezing down on Yuki’s head, almost painfully. Yuki kept on working, bringing one hand up to toy with Pritt’s clit, rubbing it gently and sliding one finger inside of her pussy as she kept on working. And she could tell that Pritt was getting close. That she was going to be cumming very soon. Yuki did her best to make that happen and for the orgasm to be as good for Pritt as she could make it. And after all this time, Yuki knew a trick or two about that.<br/><br/>Pritt came. She came pretty loudly. Anyone who was in the rooms on either side were probably thinking that the whore in this one was really earning her keep, making her client think that she was having the time of her life, getting fucked by him. Yuki, meanwhile, was almost completely silent, just panting for breath as she felt the arousal splashing against her face as Pritt enjoyed her orgasm.<br/><br/>Something about seeing Pritt cum <em>did</em> strike a chord inside of Yuki. She could feel herself moving from vaguely turned on to actually aroused. Not enough that she was going to give Pritt a free show or anything, but it still might be a nice little tingle inside of her belly on the way back home.<br/><br/>“Oh man,” Pritt said with a sigh, sitting back in her chair and smiling down at Yuki. “Oh man, that was so good.” She slowly relaxed her thigh, removing it from around Yuki’s head. “You’re just the best, Yuki.”<br/><br/>“Thanks,” Yuki said with a smile as she stood up, wincing a bit as her knees protested. “It’s always nice to see you around, too.”<br/><br/>“Yeah, and I plan on sticking around the bay,” Pritt said, stretching a bit. “So we’re going to be seeing a whole lot of each other,” she added with a wink.<br/><br/>“I’m not sure there’s more of you to see than I’m already looking at,” Yuki said dryly, waving at Pritt’s mostly naked body.<br/><br/>That made Pritt laugh and laugh. She shook her head and started getting dressed. Yuki just took a moment to catch her breath and clean up a bit. Well, that was a good enough sum to take home tonight, even after the club took their own share. And with that, it was enough to pay off all of the important bills for the month. Which meant that Yuki could finally <em>relax</em> a bit.<br/><br/>It was a tough life. But Yuki kept on pushing through it. It would be worth it, it would all be worth it, if her Ramona could just have a better life than the one her mother ended up living.<br/><br/>Ramona was worth that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Ten</b>
  </p>
</div><p><br/>I swallowed as I looked at my clone. She looked back at me, a smirk on her face as she twirled around. So that was what I looked like from behind. An answer to a question I didn’t even know I had.<br/><br/>“And yes,” the clone said, looking at me and planting her hands on her hips, “I am wearing clothes.” She stretched and then hooked her fingers underneath her shirt. “But if you want that to change…”<br/><br/>“Gah!” I said, stepping back, rubbing my face and listening to the clone laugh as she let go of her shirt. “No, no, that’s quite fine!”<br/><br/>“If you say so,” the clone said, obviously having far too good of a time here.<br/><br/>“Wait, how do you <em>know</em> I was worried about you appearing naked?” I asked, the thought coming to me and me saying it as soon as the idea formed.<br/><br/>“Well, I <em>was</em> you until a few seconds ago,” the clone pointed out. “I was thinking about naked clones until right then. And now I’m thinking about other stuff.”<br/><br/>The way she put it… I was suddenly reminded of stories I had heard about evil, murderous clones that kill the original and took over their lives. I carefully studied the clone. From the little smirk on her lips (I didn’t <em>think</em> I often looked smug, but this lady was really going the extra mile in self-confidence), she could tell exactly what I was thinking, too. But she hadn’t tried to strangle me yet, so I supposed that it wasn’t going to happen.<br/><br/>“By the way, boss,” the clone said, crossing her hands behind her head and walking back and forth along the rooftop, “since I’m obviously sticking around a lot longer than Spree's boys did, mind giving me a name?”<br/><br/>I ignored the second part of the question, the first coming into clear focus. I frowned at her. She <em>wasn’t</em> acting like Spree's clones. For one, I kind of felt… full, maybe? I didn’t think that I would be able to make another clone appear, at any rate. And by this time in the fight, Spree’s clones would have already started twitching as whatever was wrong with them <em>went</em> wrong. But this carbon copy of me looked just fine as she stared back at me.<br/><br/>“Um,” I said, shaking my head and getting my head back in the game. “Okay, right, you can be… Noriko.”<br/><br/>Using one of my middle names wasn’t the most original idea in the world, but it worked. Noriko smiled and nodded and reached out to shake my hand. I took it, shaking hands with myself. It wasn’t <em>as</em> weird as I had been expecting it to be, but it still felt strange to be looking at my own face, smiling at me.<br/><br/>“Now that we’ve got that settled,” Noriko said, sitting down on a vent and crossing her legs, “when do we go to Mom and introduce her to the twin daughter she forgot she delivered?”<br/><br/>I blinked, wincing at the realization at everything I was going to have to <em>do</em> now that there was another copy of myself running around. What was I going to tell Mom? What was <em>Kit</em> going to think, if she saw me splashing around in the pool and then came up to her hotel room to hear me cursing at the news on the other side of the wall?<br/><br/>I couldn’t come up with an answer to that. Not right now, at least. So instead I struck out for safer waters.<br/><br/>“Powers,” I said, staring at Noriko. “Can you use them?”<br/><br/>“I have boobs, so I <em>always</em> have power over men,” Noriko said, with a very cat-like smirk on her face. She kept on speaking, though, so I was spared the thought of what a nymphomaniac clone could do to the sterling reputation I enjoyed among the three or four people I was close with. “But yeah, look at this.”<br/><br/>She leapt to her feet and turned to the side. She lashed out with some sloppy martial arts moves I could vaguely remember from my lessons back during that ‘Japanese-heritage’ phase I had gone through when I was eight. The skill she executed the moves with was a lot less impressive than the powers that went along with them.<br/><br/>I could see Circus’s powers in what she was doing, mostly because I knew that my body wasn’t that fast or that flexible on its own. And I could tell that Noriko was drawing on Cricket’s powers as well to make those sound-burst thingies, though either she didn’t have them as strongly as I did or she didn’t want to make too much noise.<br/><br/>“Okay, um,” I said, the thought of what having a clone with super powers of her own might mean starting to present themselves to me. “That’s… really cool, Noriko.” A big smile appeared on her face as she wiped some hair out of her eyes. “That’s <em>really</em> cool. Is there anything else?”<br/><br/>She grunted a bit and did some odd flexing. After a moment, she stopped and shook her head.<br/><br/>“Sorry, looks like you’ve just got martial arts Noriko.” She leaned back against an air-conditioning unit and put her hands in her pockets. “Unless you want to spin the wheel again for laser beam Noriko, this,” she waved a hand at herself, “is what you’ve got.”<br/><br/>“And that’s more than fine with me,” I said, shaking my head is disbelief and wonder as I looked at her. “This is… really cool.”<br/><br/>“I’m glad you think so,” Noriko said. And she actually seemed to be telling the truth. “And I sure don’t seem to be going anywhere, either.”<br/><br/>“No,” I said, frowning, trying to come up with a reason why my power would have twisted Spree’s power like that. There was just so much going on, it was hard to focus on any one thing for any length of time. “Why?”<br/><br/>“Eh, remember that weird yellow light that got draped over everything when fighting Spree?” Noriko asked with a shrug. “That was obviously another parahuman <em>somewhere</em>. Don’t know who, don’t know why they didn’t help, don’t know what powers they had. But whatever their power was, it must have messed with you. Us. So now I’m me instead of just being the fun half of your personality.”<br/><br/>I blinked, suddenly remembering a science fiction short story I had read ages ago. I told myself a joke and was relieved that I could still find it to be funny. Okay, Noriko was just being… a little brat, quite frankly.<br/><br/>“Anyway, I’m here, I’ve got dear old Cricket’s powers and I’m guessing that there’s no risk that she’ll be coming after you for revenge.” Noriko paused and laughed. “When was the last time a normie won a fight against a cape?”<br/><br/>I tilted my head to the side and looked at her. And shivered. It was getting cold on the rooftop, at night, when I wasn’t wearing a jacket and wasn’t moving around to warm myself up.<br/><br/>“What makes you think that she won’t be getting her powers back?”<br/><br/>“For the same reason you’d be thinking that, if you went over your own memories a bit more carefully,” Noriko said, pushing herself forward and patting me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Ramona, I can be the smart one and you can be the less-pretty one.”<br/><br/>I glared at her and she laughed. I tried to remember the details of the fight against Cricket and Othala, but there was just too much going on right now for me to actually remember much of what had happened. I was just going to have to take Noriko at her word that Cricket was out of the count for the future. Good.<br/><br/>“You know, you’ve been active for a month,” Noriko said, looking up at the pitch-black night sky, the only light in it a helicopter flying above Boston. “You really should have gone out there and grabbed some more powers.”<br/><br/>She grinned.<br/><br/>“Then I would have had a bigger selection to roll the dice on. Maybe I could have gotten Oni Lee’s abilities, too.” She snorted. “A clone making clones. That would really be something.”<br/><br/>“Um, yeah, it would be,” I said distractedly. I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts into order. There was all just so <em>much</em> going on right now, it was hard to decide what I should be focusing on and what was important.<br/><br/>Okay, something that <em>was</em> important was not getting frostbite out here. I stamped my feet together and hugged myself. Man, we’d come south to get to Boston, but it seemed so much colder out here than it had back when I was hopping the rooftops in Brockton Bay.<br/><br/>When I was constantly moving. When I was wearing a thick coat. When I was wearing a mask and helmet. Okay, maybe there were more reasons for that then just Brockton Bay having <em>one</em> good thing going for it compared to Boston.<br/><br/>“I don’t know, Noriko,” I said, shaking my head. “What I did to Glory Girl…” I shifted my weight from side to side, looking out over the roof at the lights of the city and the bay beyond it. “I don’t want to kill anyone. Not even a villain. Not just to get another power.”<br/><br/>Noriko shrugged as I glanced back at her. With the light behind her, I couldn’t really tell what sort of expression she had. She pushed herself forward and walked over to me.<br/><br/>“Well, whatever you decide,” Noriko said with a shrug, “just know that you’ve got the wonderful Noriko,” she bowed, sticking one arm up and off to the side, “at your service.”<br/><br/>I nodded, wondering just what I was supposed to do with a clone like this. She looked up at me and winked.<br/><br/>Then she <em>dissolved</em>. I gasped, my eyes going wide and my throat going dry as I stepped forward, seeing her collapse into a puddle of goo on the roof, that started to vanish in turn. But even as she did so, I could feel the fullness inside of me relax. Relax a <em>lot</em>. I realized that I could probably summon her again if I ever wanted to. Or a different clone. Would it still be Noriko, or would I have to call that one Elsa?<br/><br/>After a moment’s thought, I decided that it would probably be Noriko again. We hadn’t talked for very long, but I didn’t get the sense that she was the kind of person who would kill herself just for… whatever reason she had for doing that.<br/><br/>But I wasn’t going to summon her again. At least, not out here. I turned around and looked at the hotel, rising up above me. Okay, my room was… <em>there</em>.<br/><br/>I paused as we started to head back to the open window of my hotel room. There was another thought coming to me, just as important as any of the others. And I couldn’t help but share it.<br/><br/>“Do I really sound like that?”<br/><br/>I climbed into the open window and shut it behind me, grabbing a blanket off of the top of my bed and wrapping it around me as I sat down on the chair the room had. Wow. I mean, <em>wow</em>. That was a whole lot to think about. I mean, <em>wow</em>, again.<br/><br/>I shook my head and glanced down at my phone as it buzzed. Okay, a distraction! I eagerly grabbed it and turned it on. There were a bunch of text messages from Yuri and one from Mom. I settled down and got to reading them, starting from the top.<br/><br/>Yuri’s text messages were very… her. The first word of every sentence capitalized, proper grammar, no text speak, no emojis, pretty much everything I would have expected from her. And…<br/><br/>That was nice, she had sent me a list of a few nice places to see and eat at in Boston. I nodded, looking them over. She also kind of sort of apologized for not getting back to me earlier. Or at least, I decided that her saying that she was very busy with work counted as an apology.<br/><br/>I texted her back, telling Yuri that if she ever wanted to talk about what was going on in her life, she could. That was what a responsible girlfriend should do. Was it what a hero should do to a supervillain? Man, I didn’t know. Of course, I didn’t <em>know</em> that Yuri was Bakuda, either. I mean, there could be another reason for why I could make bombs like Bakuda. Maybe whoever was actually Bakuda had been at the nightclub and I had gotten the powers from her.<br/><br/>And anyway, I was done in Boston and she was up in Brockton Bay, so what was there that I could <em>actually</em> do about it? Nothing, really. So I might as well just support my girlfriend. Yeah.<br/><br/>I was kind of surprised when Yuri got back to me. I had thought that she would have been asleep, but she must have been wide awake and right by her cell. We chatted for a bit and I realized, part way through, that I was smiling as we talked.<br/><br/>I put the phone away and smiled up at the ceiling. Then I remembered that Mom had texted me and I hadn’t even glanced at her texts! Red crept across my face as I pulled my phone back out. Okay, it wasn’t anything too important. She just wanted to let me know that she was sending a package of some of my clothes by overnight mail. <em>Good</em>, I was going to want something new to wear pretty soon. I sent back a thank you and sighed. And this time when I put my phone away, it <em>stayed</em> away.<br/><br/>Oh man, what a day. What a <em>day</em>. And what a night, too. I glanced down at my chest, wondering if I should call Noriko out to have another chat. Then I looked over at the wall separating me from Kit. I couldn’t hear anything there. Maybe she was sleeping. Maybe she was reading. Why take the chance, one way or another?<br/><br/>Instead, I just started undressing. It was time for me to hit the hay as well. Tomorrow, I would- Well, I might as well just figure out what I was going to do tomorrow when tomorrow came. There was a Bible verse about that, wasn’t there?<br/><br/>I crawled underneath the covers and turned off the lights. Well, tomorrow probably wouldn’t be this weird.<br/><b>***</b><br/>And despite a lingering worry that I had just jinxed myself, the next two days actually went pretty well. It was nice to get to wear some fresh clothes and not to have to contemplate going streaking through the hotel halls to the laundry machine and back.<br/><br/>And I was spending more time with Kit. Going out to sightsee and stuff, mostly. When she had the time, that was. Kit was spending a <em>lot</em> of the day down at the auto shop, making sure that the mechanics were going to do a good and quick job of fixing her van so that she would stop pestering them. I left her to it, while wondering if I should be taking notes on motivation for subcontractors.<br/><br/>The free time I had (and there was a <em>lot</em> of free time) was pretty enjoyably spent. Boston was a nice enough city. I went for walks, tried to resist the siren song of sweet shops and failed more times than I probably should. At least I had the money to justify the occasional purchase of fudge. And the occasional purchase of a jar of huckleberry jam for Mom as a thank you gift, the cookie dough milkshake for me and a few other odds and ends. Somehow, I never got around to eating lunch but still felt <em>very</em> full at the end of the day.<br/><br/>It might have been even better if Yuri had been around. That thought kept on coming to me after I saw two guys making out in the rose garden that Yuri had recommended. Holding her, kissing her, doing some fun stuff with her… yeah, it could be really nice.<br/><br/>But oh well, I’d be seeing her soon enough. And Mom, too, and my <em>stuff</em>. I didn’t want to think about which of the three I was more excited over. Instead, I just focused on the here and now and wondered if I should be sending Noriko out for some fun one of these days instead of me. Then I thought that over some more and decided that would <em>not</em> be a good idea.<br/><br/>But what would be a good idea would be going out on a patrol. Tonight, I was thinking. I was getting kind of jittery and after I still felt that way after both a long walk around a few city blocks and some, ah, alone time in the shower thinking about Yuri, I decided that it was the kind of jitters I got from wanting to be a hero while not doing anything more than sitting in the hotel room watching the news about <em>actual</em> heroes.<br/><br/>So, tonight would be the night. And hopefully, there wouldn’t be any complications like there had been with Spree and then with Noriko. Who I still wasn’t thinking about as much as I probably should be, I knew. But oh well!<br/><br/>I was running over my plans during dinner. Kit and I were at some burger shop, just a few blocks away from the hotel and I didn’t realize that she was talking to me at first as I tried to decide which part of Boston I would be wandering around in.<br/><br/>“Sorry, what was that?” I asked, shaking my head.<br/><br/>“I asked if you wanted to go to the movies with me,” Kit said, popping a French fry into her mouth. “There’s that new comedy, with Gabriel Withers, <em>The Show That Goes Wrong</em>?” I shrugged, having heard <em>something</em> about it, but I couldn’t remember what. “And comedies are always better with a friend along to laugh with. So if that won’t get in the way of your dating life…”<br/><br/>I laughed at that, trying to decide what to do. It had been a while since I had I seen a movie in theaters. And it would be nice to spend some more time with Kit, especially if she was going to be paying for movie theater prices. But I also wanted to go out and fight the good fight…<br/><br/>Then, like a bolt from a clear blue sky, the answer came to me. I could have <em>both</em>, get everything I wanted. And it would be super simple. I would just have to rely on Noriko’s tact. Which was almost enough to make me put the brakes on the whole plan but I found myself nodding instead.<br/><br/>“Yeah, that sounds great, Kit,” I said with a smile as I pulled out my phone. “Where’s the nearest theater around here, anyway?”<br/><br/>“I already took care of that,” Kit said with a snort. “We’ll need to take a bus, but we can pick up the seven twenty showing.”<br/><br/>So, seven twenty, call it two hours, probably, with transit times before Kit would get back to the hotel, maybe even later if she went to a bar with Noriko… yeah, I was sure I could get some patrolling done in two hours. Eight oh five wasn’t the prime evil-doing hours, but I would take it.<br/><br/>I nodded and smiled at Kit, not seeing any real downsides to this. She smiled back at me and started to finish off her burger.<br/><br/>“That sounds like a really good idea, Kit,” I said. “It should be a pleasure, I think.”<br/><br/>“Then we’ve got ourselves a plan,” Kit said, glancing down at her watch. “Okay, it’s five forty now, the bus leaves right at seven, so we’ve got some time to get ready.”<br/><br/>I nodded. I wouldn’t need much time to get ready, just a bit of privacy to make sure that Noriko and I weren’t seen in the same place. But… yeah, this sounded like it was going to go pretty well.<br/><br/>When we got back to the hotel to freshen up, I didn’t waste any time in calling up Noriko. This was the first time that I had brought her out since that night on the rooftops, but it was still <em>really</em> easy to bring her into being. Just a little flicker of effort and here she was, looking right at me, with a smile on her face.<br/><br/>And wearing an exact copy of my outfit, too. I patted my pocket without even thinking about it, feeling the key card in there. Well, with any luck, Noriko would have that too, and we wouldn’t have to set up some ridiculously complex system to get us both in and out of the hotel room.<br/><br/>“Okay, Noriko,” I said, looking right at her as she made herself comfortable on the bed. “Do you know what I and Kit were talking about?”<br/><br/>“Go to the movies, get smoochies,” Noriko said with a gleam in her eyes.<br/><br/>I fixed her with an unamused glare, crossing my arms underneath my chest as I looked at her. It had about the same effect as scolding a stream, though.<br/><br/>“Get your head out of the gutter, Noriko,” I said, lowering my voice so that, with any luck, Kit wouldn’t hear me talking to myself. “Kit’s my friend and my boss, nothing more.”<br/><br/>Noriko still had that smile on her face and I couldn’t tell if she was just messing with me or if she was actually planning to try and kiss Kit.<br/><br/>“Listen, if you-,” I tried to think of something I could actually threaten her with and came up blank. “Do not screw this up, understand?”<br/><br/>“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” Noriko said, in a way that didn’t stop me from worrying at <em>all</em>. “Don’t you worry, everything’s going to be just fine.”<br/><br/>She chuckled and I started to wonder if I should go to the movies while Noriko went out on patrol. No, I had more powers than she did.<br/><br/>“Seriously, Ramona, I know how to behave when I want to behave,” she said. “Go have fun beating up people.”<br/><br/>I rolled my eyes, but I was assured <em>enough</em> that I didn’t stop to worry anymore. Instead, I looked around, trying to remember where I had left my costume, such as it was. I wanted to be safely out of the room before Noriko and Kit left for the film. And ideally, back in the room before they arrived, so that Kit wouldn’t hear a scrabbling at the window when I came back.<br/><br/>Man, this was going to be a preview of what things would be like with Mom when I got back home, wasn’t it?</p><p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><p>I was getting <em>bored</em> out here. I was getting <em>really</em> bored. Was I just not patrolling in the right way? Was there supposed to be some secret to stopping supervillains that I wasn’t aware of? Because I had been out here for hours by now and I was bored, bored, bored.<br/><br/>Ugh, I should have gone to the movies with Kit after all. Lucky Noriko, getting to have all the fun out there. I sighed and sat down on a bus stop bench, sneaking a hand underneath my mask to rub at my face. Screw it, I was going to head back to the hotel and watch some TV. I’d be doing about as much good.<br/><br/>As I started on the long, <em>long</em> walk back to the hotel, my phone buzzed. I reached down to get it and only realized that this was my <em>Sentinel</em> phone when my hand wrapped around the casing. Nobody should know this number. I had only ever used it once. Who could possibly- Noriko.<br/><br/>I looked down at the text, not sure if I should be worried or annoyed. Then I quickly came down on worried. The text was badly spelled and the wrong words were used sometimes. But I could tell what it meant. The Teeth were attacking the movie theater and Noriko and Kit were still inside.<br/><br/>I swore and spun around. I had passed by the theater while I was patrolling. That had been about forty minutes ago. But if I used my powers-<br/><br/>I didn’t stop to think about how much time I could save with my powers. Instead, I just started to <em>run</em>, using Glory Girl’s super-strength to pound the concrete faster and make some jumps and Circus’s power to let me not bother going around buildings. Instead, I just climbed up them and did everything I could for a straight-line dash towards the theater.<br/><br/>Shit, shit, <em>shit</em>. I had done a bit of reading on the Teeth. They were <em>psychos</em>, the sort of gang that belonged in a bloody cartoon, not in real life. If they were attacking a theater- no, I wasn’t going to think about that.<br/><br/>That was what I told myself, at least, but as I ran, I wasn’t able to stop myself from wondering why they were attacking <em>this</em> movie theater. They couldn’t possibly know about the connection between Sentinel and Kit and me, could they? Was this just some horribly bad luck?<br/><br/>I didn’t know and I wasn’t going to find out just by worrying about it. Maybe I could get some answers out of the Teeth. And I was just about to manage that. When I crested the top of the building I was on, I could see the theater complex. There was a single cop car at the far end of the parking lot, its lights flashing on and off and some people running towards it. But that was it, as far as the authorities went. I couldn’t hear any other sirens, either.<br/><br/>And I wasn’t going to wait for them, either. That my <em>friend</em> in there and I could do a whole hell of a lot more to stop some superpowered scum bags than two cops with a pistol and a shotgun could manage. I looked at the theater again.<br/><br/>There was a dark stain in the shattered glass doors at the front. But the emergency exits to each theater were standing open, on this side at least. There were still some people pouring out of them.<br/><br/>As I looked, my phone buzzed again. I quickly hauled it out, feeling sweat forming inside of my clothing. It was Noriko again.<br/><br/><em>Hiddng movie booth. Got Kit. Wre U?</em><br/><br/>Okay, she and Kit were still safe. And honestly, I was more relieved about Kit than Noriko. It might be possible that if Noriko was killed, she would just pop out again when I wanted her to, safe and sound. Nothing would bring Kit back if she was killed, though.<br/><br/>I texted her back, telling her I was here and that I needed to know what movie theater they were in. I could hear the sounds of <em>something</em> from inside the building, but I was so worked up and there were so many other sounds coming in from the parking lot and the city in general that I couldn’t figure out what they were.<br/><br/><em>Don’t know number</em>, my phone read. <em>Went past three four doors to right when coming in</em>.<br/><br/>That was going to have to be good enough. Cops and heroes would be on their way, but they weren’t here yet. I was, people I cared about were in trouble and there was only one thing to do.<br/><br/>I jumped off of the roof. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I took off for the theater entrance, running for all I was worth. I was going to get in there and I was going to <em>save</em> Kit and Noriko.<br/><br/>And nothing was going to stop me from doing that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Eleven</b>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p><br/>I dashed across the parking lot. If anyone saw me, they didn’t say or do anything. I slipped in through the broken front doors, wincing as I was forced to step in blood. There was someone laying down against a ticket booth, but even in the bad lighting, even with a glance, I could tell that there was nothing that I could do for them. There was nothing that <em>anyone</em> could do for them anymore.</p>
  <p>I looked around the lobby. I could see the hallway that led to the theaters at the end of it, but was that really the way I wanted to go? Right down the middle, where there could be who knew what? Shouldn’t there be some staff-only spaces that could maybe run right to the theater that Noriko and Kit were hiding in?</p>
  <p>I hopped over the concession counter and almost screamed. The two women and one little boy behind it <em>did</em> scream as I suddenly appeared. I shook my head, holding a finger up in front of my mask. They quickly quieted down, though I could still hear their heavy breathing.</p>
  <p>Both of the women were wearing red and white shirts with the logo of the theater chain on their breast. The little boy was black while they were both white, and they <em>were</em> wearing the theater's uniforms. I wondered where his parents were and had a bad feeling about the answer.</p>
  <p>“Go, go,” I said in a harsh whisper, literally tasting fear and worry in the back of my mouth. “It’s a straight shot out to the parking lot and the cops.”</p>
  <p>“Right, right,” the older woman of the two whispered. She reached down and grabbed the kid’s hand. He stared up at her like he didn’t understand what was happening. And at his age, he probably didn’t. “Let’s go, sweetie.”</p>
  <p>“Wait,” I said, putting a hand on her arm. “That door over there,” I pointed at the small, unobtrusive door wedged in between the popcorn machines and a hot dog warmer that was still slowly turning. “Is it locked?”</p>
  <p>“Yes, but here’s the keys,” the other woman said, pulling a cord out of her pocket and shoving all half dozen keys into my hand. “Uh, the one with three holes in the fob unlocks it and I’ll need them back!”</p>
  <p>I didn’t have time to slip the right keys off of the chain and hand the rest back to the woman. Not when I was so intently, horribly aware of every passing second and what could be happening to Kit and Noriko.</p>
  <p>“Right,” I said in a harsh whisper. “Go, go, go!”</p>
  <p>They started to scuttle along the counter, keeping their heads below it. I watched them go for a second and then went to the door. It unlocked easily enough and I looked around inside. It was a narrow, cramped, <em>empty</em> hallway with a bunch of doors leading off of it. The empty bit was the most important. I could ignore the boxes and shelves hemming me in if it meant that there weren’t going to be any Teeth.</p>
  <p>Thankfully, there were signs over the doors, at least the ones leading to the theaters. I counted under my breath, fingering my belt as I kept on looking up and down along the hallway. There was nothing, nobody. I could only hope that if there <em>was</em> someone, they were hiding in one of the rooms, better than those two food stand workers had been and that they could come out when it was all over.</p>
  <p>I was distracted by hearing some sounds in one of the rooms. They weren’t <em>good</em> sounds, either. Nobody should be laughing right now. And if they were, it should be a high-pitched giggle that was half a step removed from sobbing. Not this self-satisfied chuckle that said that the person laughing was going to enjoy whatever was about to happen next.</p>
  <p>I wanted to go find Kit and get her and Noriko out of here. But if someone was in trouble, and there was no <em>way</em> that they couldn’t be, with that sort of laughter, I couldn’t leave them alone.</p>
  <p>The sound had come from the door behind me. It was open, just a crack. I sidled up next to it and slowly, gently pushed it open, doing my best not to make a sound.</p>
  <p>There were some Teeth capes inside the storeroom, standing amid a litter of random crap strewn across the floor. They were dressed like movie barbarians, all leather and fur and bits of shiny metal and plastic. And two of them were looking down at an older man as the third kicked him, again and again.</p>
  <p>There was no justification that they could possibly give that I would accept. I frowned and opened the door wide enough for me to step inside. I started running at them, not wanting to give the capes a chance to do whatever it was that they could do.</p>
  <p>One of them looked up just in time to see my fist as it slammed against his face. He went toppling backwards, feet kicking up some scattered colored paper before he went down, cursing. The other two instantly turned to me, one of them charging at me with his fists raised as the sole woman of the group, the one doing the kicking, cursed and reached down to her belt.</p>
  <p>I didn’t have time to pay any more attention to her as I was forced to meet the man charging me. Whatever his powers were, he didn’t seem to be using them as he swung a knife at me. I slid out of the way and kicked him in the stomach, my knee making him gasp for breath as he folded around it.</p>
  <p>A shot rang out and all of a sudden, I could feel the forcefield I had gotten from Glory Girl go down. I was dashing to the side and lowering myself down even as some more shots rang out. I looked at the woman. She was inarticulacy cursing as she shot at me, her pistol held out straight in front of her.</p>
  <p>I reached down and grabbed one of the binders on the floor and tossed it at her, even as I kept on moving. She flinched back, even though the binder didn’t go anywhere close to her. But it was enough to let me get in close and punch her extended arm as hard as I could. She made a moaning sound and the gun spun off into a corner of the room. I knew I had just broken her arm but I couldn’t bring myself to <em>care</em>.</p>
  <p>Especially not with the first guy I had punched rising to his feet, cursing up a storm as he shook his head back and forth. And not using powers. <em>None</em> of them had used any kind of superpower at all and, now that I had a moment or two to breathe, I realized that I wasn’t drinking in anything from them either.</p>
  <p>They were just regular people. Regular bits of scum, since they had been watching and laughing as their friend beat an old man to death for no reason, but not actual supervillains. That wasn’t going to make me go easier on them, though. If she had connected with more than one bullet…</p>
  <p>I put that thought to the side as I punched the man again. This time, when he went down, he stayed down, moaning and clutching his jaw. All three of them were still conscious, but none of them looked like they had any ability or desire to keep on fighting. Good. Damn good. I knelt down next to the old man.</p>
  <p>“Sir, are you okay?” I asked, wondering what I was going to do if he said <em>no</em>. I didn’t have time to carry someone out to the ambulances and explain myself to whatever cops and heroes were out there. “Can you stand?”</p>
  <p>“I, I think so,” he gasped, pain written across his face. He gingerly stood up and I helped him rise to his feet. He was steady enough once he got up that I could go and get the pistol from where it lay. No sense in leaving this behind. “Thank you, young lady.”</p>
  <p>“Of course, of course,” I said, looking at the door, feeling like time was slipping away from me.</p>
  <p>I looked him over, wondering how a visitor to the movie theater had ended up in the back rooms and if there was anyone else here as well. No, there was no time to go checking from room to room, not when I <em>knew</em> where Kit and Noriko were.</p>
  <p>“Listen, the cops are already outside,” I said. "Just head down the hall to the-" for a moment, I blanked on if he should go left or right, “to the lobby and they’ll take care of you, alright?”</p>
  <p>“Fucking bitch, you think you can fucking screw with us?” one of the Teeth was grumbling. I ignored him as I led the man outside. “You’re dead, you fucking cunt, I’m going to-”</p>
  <p>I closed the door behind the two of us. The old man started limping down to the lobby, a halt in his step. I winced at the sight and then looked at the closed door. For a moment, some really nasty urges washed over me before I forced them back down. Instead, I breathed in and out and looked around.</p>
  <p>The door opened inward and had a loop handle. It was easy enough to jam a broom through the loop so that it wouldn’t open up. I dropped the gun in front of the door. There, even the police should be able to handle three unarmed goons who had the stuffing already knocked out of them. And it was time for me to <em>go</em>.</p>
  <p>I started to <em>jog</em> along the corridor, not wanting to waste anymore time. If anything happened to Kit… ugh, that was an awful thought, not one that I ever wanted to have to really consider.</p>
  <p>Finally, I found the right theater door. It was locked and I grumbled, looking down at the chain of keys I had. No, that would take too long. I stuffed them in my pocket and reared back.</p>
  <p>Despite everything, it was still pretty exciting to punch a door and watch it swing forward, a huge dent appearing in the middle of it as the lock snapped in two. I came surging through the door and into the projector booth, looking around and ready for anything. Or hoping that I was, at least.</p>
  <p>I could just see two pale forms crouched on the floor up against one wall. Then something appeared in front of my eyes and slashed at me. I jumped backwards with a shout and turned my head.</p>
  <p>The movie was still playing, though the sound was turned off. In the light from the screen, I could see two figures standing amid the rows of seats, looking up at me. They were dressed just like the thugs from earlier, all leather and fur and bone. And they were obviously capes.</p>
  <p>It looked like they were both women, one short and slender, the other tall and stocky. The tall one had <em>something</em> covering her, something I couldn’t make out too well in the variable, flickering light of the movie.</p>
  <p>“Give up,” I called out, glancing down to see Kit and Noriko huddling against the wall separating the booth from the theater proper. “There’s cops and heroes around every part of the theater by now. You’re not getting out.”</p>
  <p>The small woman laughed, shaking her head back and forth. Around her, for a good ten feet or so, things started to shimmer in the air. They were small, none of them of them bigger than my palm, but they looked <em>sharp</em>. And there were dozens, hundreds of them, too.</p>
  <p>“Yeah, right,” the taller woman said, shaking her head back and forth as I slowly moved to the side, stepping out of the shattered box and freeing the exit to be used by my clone and my friend. “You think a bunch of wimps are going to stop us?”</p>
  <p>She grinned ferally, the light of the movie making her smile look as red as blood. Which was what was the covering on her was, I realized, red blood moving back and forth and slowly dripping upwards from sources that I was glad I couldn’t see, below the seats.</p>
  <p>“We’re the Teeth, bitch. We’re going to kill you, kill some pigs and then kill a few more people. And nobody’s going to stop us.”</p>
  <p>“I’m Sentinel, and you can either come peacefully,” and I didn’t think that there was the slightest chance of that happening, “or give me a fun story to tell down at the precinct when I drag you there.”</p>
  <p>That got the smaller woman to start to laugh. It wasn’t a very nice laugh and the area around her started to get filled with more and more of those sharp-edged shards. They weren’t moving around, at least and there was a space around her friend. I didn’t know if that was going to be something I could use, but at least it could help.</p>
  <p>“You’re dead,” the small woman said. “Cover me, Hemmy!”</p>
  <p>She started to run down the aisle towards the steps that led up to the box. I ducked a bit as the taller woman (whose proper cape name <em>couldn’t</em> be Hemmy) grunted as a stream of blood came boiling out from her, right at me. I didn’t know how much blood could hurt me if it hit me, but it was still <em>disgusting</em> even if nothing else happened.</p>
  <p>I could see Kit and Noriko scrambling towards the open door out of the corner of my eye. Good. <em>Good</em>. I took a deep breath and wished that I had some grenades to throw at the woman charging up to meet me, whoever she was. It would have been nice to see how well she handled stairs when she wasn’t able to see or hear.</p>
  <p>Instead, I called on Menja’s power and felt myself <em>grow</em>, rising up into the air another foot and a half as I stepped out of the box. I growled down at the woman as I tensed up, opening my mouth beneath my mask to focus Cricket’s power and to, with any luck, make the woman throw up.</p>
  <p>It didn’t work, though she did stumble a bit as she kept on climbing the stairs to me. The cloud of shards around her were getting closer to me as well and I could see some of them tearing up the paint on the theater walls and ripping the stuffing out of the chairs. Those things were <em>sharp</em>.</p>
  <p>At least the other woman wasn’t able to do anything, not with her friend in the way. I could see her moving off to the side, trying to get a clear line of sight or possibly to flank me. Luckily, the theater seats were bulky enough that climbing over them would just make her a target, so she was taking the long way around, to the other side of the theater.</p>
  <p>I cursed as I met the forcefields. They were just as sharp as I had been worried about, cutting through my clothing. Not very far, and certainly not into my skin. But there were a <em>lot</em> of them and I wasn’t seeing any sign of them stopping anytime soon.</p>
  <p>“Going to leave you in little bits,” the woman hissed as she came to a wary stop, out of easy range for me, but close enough for her. “You’re going to scream and piss yourself and then you’re going to die.”</p>
  <p>“Shut up,” I grunted, stomping forward, lashing out with my hand at her. “Just shut your trap.”</p>
  <p>I gritted my teeth as I felt the shards cutting up my arm, but it wasn’t <em>too</em> bad, not yet. And with my reach, at just over eight feet, I didn’t have to wade very far in to get to her.</p>
  <p>She made a hissing sound and ducked backwards, glaring at me underneath her ragged mask. I kept up the attack, even as I winced, feeling the blood starting to dribble out of the multitude of small, shallow cuts all over my body.</p>
  <p>It wasn’t moving like blood should. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and saw Hemmy stretching a hand out to me, my blood glistening in the light of the movie as it flowed towards her.</p>
  <p>Shit. Shit, that was ugly and disturbing and it looked really, really bad to me. I suddenly realized that I needed to do something new to wrap this up quick.</p>
  <p>Almost as soon as the problem came to me, so did the answer. I leapt backwards, clearing a good yard or so of space and getting clear of the small woman’s forcefields. I reached down and with a grunt, ripped one of the theater chairs out from its base. I turned around and threw it, with everything I had, at the movie projector. There was a loud crash and suddenly, the entire theater went dark as the projector was smashed.</p>
  <p>The only lights on were the EXIT signs above the doors and that wasn’t nearly enough to see by. But I didn’t <em>need</em> to see. I took a deep breath and called on Cricket’s power once again, for a slightly different purpose than before.</p>
  <p>And it worked. I could see the two Teeth members, holding still and looking back and forth. Well, <em>see</em> wasn’t the right word, since I was using sound to figure out where they were and what they were doing. But it was enough to let me decide what I was going to do.</p>
  <p>I started moving towards ‘Hemmy’ as quietly as I could, all while calling on Glory Girl’s aura to blast the entire theater with terror and fear, as much of it as I could, as strongly as I could. And since they were in the dark with someone they were fighting, I had a pretty good feeling about how well it would work to unsettle them.</p>
  <p>I could tell that both of them were assuming a defensive stance, more and more forcefields surrounding the small woman while a disgusting shield of blood surrounded the other one. I was <em>not</em> looking forward to punching through that, but what choice did I have?</p>
  <p>I certainly didn’t have time to think of anything clever to do as the small woman pulled out a smartphone and turned it on. She must have had a flashlight app on that thing, because all of a sudden there was a cone of bright white light filling up the theater.</p>
  <p>“Look out!” she shouted, seeing me. “She’s- damn it!”</p>
  <p>It was too late for that! I reached out and punched the taller, stronger woman. I could feel my power eating at her. It had been doing that for a while, but with two capes here, it had been moving slowly, trying to get them both at the same time instead of focusing on one instead of the other.</p>
  <p>The blood shield was a <em>lot</em> stronger than it should have been. But I was a lot stronger than I should have been, too. I punched through it and caught the woman in the chest, knocking her back down a few steps. She didn’t actually fall, but it was still enough to shake her control. I followed up by unleashing another blast of fear and terror, trying to rattle them.</p>
  <p>It worked better than I thought. The other woman, on the other side of the theater, let out a cursing sob and turned around. I blinked in shock as I watched her bolt for the exit. I couldn’t believe it!</p>
  <p>Neither could the woman in front of me. She hopped back down a few more steps, looking at the fleeing woman.</p>
  <p>“Vex, get back here, you chickenshit cow-!”</p>
  <p>I cut her off by attacking her again, stepping forward. I <em>had</em> this, I knew. Even with my blood getting drawn out of my wounds (I was going to have nightmares about this, I could tell) I still had too many tricks up my sleeve.</p>
  <p>And the only thing that ‘Hemmy’ could do was try and draw enough blood out of me to make me too weak to fight back. It was just too <em>easy</em> to avoid her punches and kicks, with all of the various powers, Circus and Cricket and hell, even Menja’s reach, at my disposal. I was making a <em>fool</em> out of her and it was actually making me feel good to do so.</p>
  <p>Her power gave out before she did. It was obvious that she was straining more and more to keep her shields and spears of blood up, as they lost coherence and started to sag in midair. And I was adding to it, punching and kicking and grabbing her. Not as hard as I could, even though she was evil and disgusting. I didn’t want to kill her. But I did want her to stop fighting.</p>
  <p>Kicking her in the leg, well, I probably used a bit more force than I needed to. I didn’t actually hear a cracking sound and she wasn’t screaming loud enough for me to have really broken anything. She didn’t try to stand up, though. I stayed over her, looking down at her, panting for breath.</p>
  <p>I could <em>feel</em> the new power welling up inside of me, getting stronger and stronger, forming into something that I could actually use. And around the two of us, I could see that the blood ‘Hemmy’ had called up was starting to trickle back down, lose any shape except what it would normally have.</p>
  <p>Man, I was <em>not</em> looking forward to having blood based powers. How villainous could you get? On the other hand, it was a lot better that I had them and didn’t use them rather than someone in this gang of sociopathic marauders getting to use them.</p>
  <p>On that note, I looked at the open door next to the screen. Should I go after Vex? After a moment’s thought, I decided not to. Odds were good enough that she was going to get nabbed by Boston’s heroes anyway. And I wanted to get away from all of this, before someone showed up and started asking questions that I really should answer.</p>
  <p>But if I wasn’t <em>there</em> to be asked the questions, then there was no way that I could be chided for not answering them, right? Right, time to go before people started wondering about how two villains in the same gang both lost their ability to use their powers.</p>
  <p>And I wanted to make sure that Kit and Noriko made it out safe.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <br/>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p><br/>I sighed as I slipped into my hotel room. Oh jeez, what a night. What a <em>night</em>. As I shut the window behind me, I looked around.</p>
  <p>Noriko was lounging on the bed, though she at least had the decency to sit up as I entered. I opened my mouth to say something, but she quickly shook her head and pointed at the wall separating my room from Kit’s.</p>
  <p>“Hey,” I said in a very quiet voice, just above a whisper. “How are you doing?”</p>
  <p>“Not bad, not great,” Noriko said in a voice just as quiet. “Listen, I told Kit that I needed a shower and some time to myself but she was being pretty clingy. It will take too long to tell you everything that happened, so just absorb me and get my memories before she comes knocking, alright?”</p>
  <p>A bit bossy, but it made sense. I nodded and did whatever it was that I did to absorb Noriko. She vanished and I shook my head, feeling my brain overheat a bit as several hours of memories of things I didn’t do or see suddenly got dumped into my mind.</p>
  <p>That was-weird. Yeah, it was <em>really</em> weird to suddenly have a bunch of memories that I didn't remember doing suddenly getting dropped inside of my brain. I had known that Noriko could do that, but not really <em>absorbed</em> that she could do it.</p>
  <p>Okay, at least neither Noriko or Kit had been hurt. Noriko had gotten a bad feeling as soon as the screaming outside the theater had started and had led Kit up the stairs to the projector booth as the rest of the crowd tried to get out of the exits, where the Teeth were waiting. Then they had stayed there, not looking over the edge as the two capes and some hanger-ons had gone into the theater and done some stuff that made Noriko glad she hadn’t looked over the edge.</p>
  <p>I realized that I was getting Noriko’s thoughts and emotions as well, instead of just what she had seen and heard. A bit odd, to be thinking someone else’s thoughts, even if they were kind of blurred.</p>
  <p>Anyway, they had stayed there until I had arrived and crept out of the theater, into the waiting arms of the police. They had been questioned briefly and then let go with a request to come to Boston’s PRT headquarters tomorrow for a full statement.</p>
  <p>Good. Very good. I could go and do that and then… think about things when they started to happen. Right now, I needed a <em>shower</em>. Really, really badly.</p>
  <p>I stripped off my costume and put it into Circus’s dimensional storage space and headed for the bathroom. The water did <em>not</em> feel good on my cuts, which were mostly on my arms and face and I took one of the fastest showers I had ever taken. Then I got down to applying first aid, pulling a red and white kit out of my pocket dimension.</p>
  <p>I didn’t think that the cuts would scar. They were too small, really. I didn’t even need to put band-aids on most of them, even. Good, there wouldn’t be an easy way to explain getting hurt so badly to Kit if she saw me with an entire box worth of band-aids on my arms and decorating my cheeks and chin.</p>
  <p>Speaking of Kit, I had only just gotten into the PJs that Mom had sent me when I heard a knock at the door. I went over to open it up. And there Kit was, giving me a wan smile and looking a bit worse for wear.</p>
  <p>“Hi, Ramona,” Kit said. “Can I come in?”</p>
  <p>“Of course, sure,” I said, stepping backwards, my heart in my mouth as I looked over the hotel room. Thankfully, there wasn’t anything incriminating left out to reveal myself as Sentinel. “What’s on your mind?”</p>
  <p>“I wanted to talk to you, Ramona,” Kit said, stepping inside and sitting down on the bed. She ran a hand through her short red hair. “See how you’re doing.”</p>
  <p>I looked at her closely. She looked a bit tired and her fingers were drumming against her knee. But other than that, I wasn’t able to see anything that looked too out of place. She certainly didn’t look like she was going to go to pieces suddenly or anything.</p>
  <p>“I’m doing…” I thought back to the memories that Noriko gave me. I was just as glad that there was a bit of a veil over them, whether from the passage of time or Noriko spending so long away from me, I wasn’t sure. “I’m doing fine. Well, you know.”</p>
  <p>“Yeah, it’s always a bit…” Kit couldn’t think of a proper word to describe it and just sighed. “Yeah, this is the third time I’ve been at Ground Zero for a bunch of supervillains. It can be… something.”</p>
  <p>I was surprised at that. Kit had once mentioned having to outrun… ugh, somebody, I couldn’t remember the name, from one of the dead and dusted gangs that popped up and vanished every few months. But I didn’t know about a second time.</p>
  <p>“Anyway, it wasn’t all bad,” Kit said with a small grin as she looked up at me. “Did you see that hero who was there? Sentinel, I think?”</p>
  <p>“Um,” I said eloquently. “Yeah, yeah I did.”</p>
  <p>I didn’t know <em>where</em> this was going to go, but pretty much anything that Kit said was certain to be hugely and immensely embarrassing, I just <em>knew</em> it. But how was I supposed to get out of this except by listening to what she had to say?</p>
  <p>“She was pretty badass, wasn’t she?” Kit said, leaning forward and resting her chin on her hands. “And that accent… do you think it was French?” She sighed. “I always thought that there was something sexy about French girls.”</p>
  <p>I opened and closed my mouth, not sure <em>what</em> I was supposed to say. I wasn’t even coming up with any ideas on what to say. Nothing that I could even immediately reject as a bad idea. There was just <em>nothing</em> going on.</p>
  <p>“What do you think her powers are, Ramona?” Kit asked, looking at me. “I checked online, but there wasn’t anything there worth my time.” She grinned. “Guess that means that if we saw anything, we can be one of the first to start talking about her.” She paused. “She’s usually seen back home in the Bay, if you can believe it. Wonder if that was a one-time thing or if tonight was.”</p>
  <p>I didn’t want Kit thinking too hard or too long about how me being down in Boston happened at the same time that Sentinel appeared on Boston. The odds of her making the connection were <em>bad</em>, since ‘I’ had been right by her side when Sentinel had appeared. But why on earth would I take that chance?</p>
  <p>“Um, I,” I said, swallowing. “I think that I saw her grow pretty tall, right before we left.”</p>
  <p>Noriko hadn’t actually seen anything like that, but I wanted to throw Kit a bone. And to get the topic of conversation away from sexy times.</p>
  <p>“A grower, not a shower, huh?” Kit asked, before giggling and pointing at me. “Wow, that’s one hell of a look on your face, Ramona!”</p>
  <p>I could <em>feel</em> myself starting to blush and buried my head in my hands. Which, of course, only made her laugh that much harder.</p>
  <p>“Seriously, though, showing up like that…” Kit sighed and leaned backwards. “Nick of time, you know?”</p>
  <p>I wasn’t so sure about that. It wasn’t like Vex had been beating on the door to the booth. But why ruin the moment? Instead, I just nodded.</p>
  <p>“I wouldn’t mind seeing her again,” Kit said, laughing a bit nervously. “And maybe… thanking her, you know?”</p>
  <p>The way she said that… I looked at her closely. There was a blush on her own cheeks, rather noticeable given how pale her skin normally was.</p>
  <p>“Thank her how?” I asked suspiciously.</p>
  <p>“You know how rock stars get panties thrown up onto the stage?” Kit asked, grinning widely even as she flushed as red as I was going. “And she actually saved our lives. We don't need to go that far, but maybe we could, I don't know, do <em>something</em> to show her how much we appreciate not being killed.</p>
  <p>Kit started laughing as soon as I sat back, a strange look on my face at the thought of thanking myself. I couldn’t tell how serious she was being versus just enjoying getting a reaction out of me. But it didn’t matter. Because I was <em>not</em> going to be able to avoid thinking about Noriko wearing my costume as we presented her a cake we had made together.</p>
  <p>Damnit, I <em>really</em> needed to get back home to my girlfriend. Or at least to walls that were thick enough that certain sounds wouldn’t be carrying through.</p>
  <p>“Kit,” I hissed, trying to keep from sounding too embarrassed. And failing. “What’s gotten into you?”</p>
  <p>Kit wiggled her eyebrows and I groaned, realizing the innuendo I had just walked into. This was going to be a long night, I could tell.</p>
  <p>But at least it was going to be a lot more fun than it could have been.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <b>Grit Chapter Twelve</b>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Noriko smiled to herself as she leaned back on the bed, feeling the freshly changed sheets underneath her body. She wiggled around, tossing an unused bomb casing up and down in the air like a stress ball. As she goofed off, she talked, not quite looking at the original.</p>
  <p>“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back to the Bay?”</p>
  <p>“Help Kit clean out the van and get everything put away,” Ramona said with a snort as she sat at the small desk the hotel room had, hunched over some components she had smuggled in through her pocket dimension. “Then go home and reassure Mom that a serial killer didn’t get me and was the one sending her those texts.”</p>
  <p>“You live <em>such</em> an interesting life, Ramona,” Noriko said, sitting upright and staring at the back of Ramona’s head. “They should make a movie about you.”</p>
  <p>A screwdriver was chucked over Ramona’s shoulder and missed by a mile. Noriko cackled and started to toss the casing from hand to hand. She glanced over at the wall separating this room from Kit’s. The redhead should be sound asleep by now, since it was the late, late hour of nine thirty at night. But Ramona would get all whiny if Noriko talked <em>too</em> loudly. And so might the people in the other rooms surrounding this one, she supposed.</p>
  <p>“And then, yes, I’ll go spend time with ‘Yuri’ and then… I don’t know, see what happens next.” Ramona reached down to rub her ribs. “See if I can get a healing power that works faster and covers more bits of me.” She grumbled something about freaky blood powers to herself.</p>
  <p>“I can think of a few possibilities,” Noriko said. “Maybe if we grab Othala again, I can give <em>you</em> regeneration. That should work, right?”</p>
  <p>“Maybe?” Ramona said with a shrug. “Does her power work on herself or only on others? And if it's on others, then do you <em>count</em> as an other?”</p>
  <p>Noriko wasn’t really sure. But she was quite willing to go and nab the other girl who had escaped last time and drain her down to the bones. Whether or not it worked, it would still taste nice.</p>
  <p>It was a pity that Ramona didn’t have more get-up-and-go. If she was just willing to let go of all of that stuff about heroes being good people who shouldn’t get snacked on, Noriko was pretty sure that she’d be hitting in the heavy league, along with Eidolon and however you were supposed to pronounce the Fairy Queen’s name. She’d need to keep <em>on</em> eating, of course, because that sort of thing worked up an <em>appetite</em>, but it was entirely possible for her to be a household name in every country on the planet.</p>
  <p>“And how will you feel when you get back home?” Noriko asked, standing up and walking over to the window. “Do some jumping jacks as you run up and down a flight of stairs?”</p>
  <p>“I’m doing better,” Ramona said, rubbing her stomach. Noriko studied her reflection in the mirror that the window provided, watching her face. “I’m doing just fine.”</p>
  <p>Really, Noriko hadn’t even needed to pay attention to notice that Ramona didn’t sound that fine. She sounded a bit worried. Noriko supposed that getting shot at could rattle somebody, especially if they weren’t as special as Noriko herself was.</p>
  <p>“Right,” Ramona said, sitting back in her chair and picking it up to turn around and look at Noriko. “I think that’s about enough for the night.” She rubbed her stomach. “Time for a late dinner.” She glanced at the clock and frowned. “A <em>very</em> late dinner.”</p>
  <p>“Room service again?” Noriko asked.</p>
  <p>“Ugh, no,” Ramona said, pulling out the Boston directory and flipping through it. “Not after what they called French dip.” She glanced up at Noriko. “Going to stick around for dinner this time?”</p>
  <p>“I suppose so,” Noriko said with a shrug. Food, along with sleep, bathing, all that stuff, was only a concern if Noriko stayed out in the world too long instead of diving back inside of Ramona. Whenever she got summoned again, she ended up feeling fine and dandy. “If you’re willing to pay for me.”</p>
  <p>Ramona muttered something that Noriko couldn’t quite make out, about paying for a lot of stuff that Noriko did. Noriko grinned. That movie last night, about a man getting in comedic trouble because of what his clone had done, had been <em>very</em> entertaining. Noriko didn’t think that she was going to act on any of the ideas in it, but it was enough to know that Ramona was wondering about those same wacky hijinks.</p>
  <p>“How does Italian food sound?” Ramona asked, tapping a line in the directory.</p>
  <p>“Quite fine,” Noriko said. “I’ll have a 1975 Château Blanc to go with it.” Noriko didn’t actually know anything more about wine than Ramona did, but she did know-</p>
  <p>“There’s tap water over there,” Ramona grumbled, pointing at the bathroom sink.</p>
  <p>Yeah, that. That Ramona was going to say that.</p>
  <p>A few minutes later, Noriko was heading out of the hotel, having very graciously volunteered to go and get the dinner. And, of course, to see if any capes crossed her path, whether villain or hero. What Ramona didn’t know about wasn’t going to hurt her. Well, that was a huge lie, of course, but not one that Noriko planned on doing anything about. Or one that Noriko <em>could</em> do anything about. Everything would happen in due time and what could a human do about it?</p>
  <p>The Italian place was just a few blocks away. Noriko whistled to herself as she walked, hands stuffed inside of her jacket as she looked around. One hand was fiddling with the sleep-gas bomb that Ramona had made. <em>One</em> of the sleep-gas bombs that she had made. After getting involved in two fights in almost as many days, Ramona was starting to get a little bit paranoid. She had enough grenades stored up in her pocket dimension to send the entire hotel off to la-la land by now.</p>
  <p>Noriko’s other hand was running over the handful of bills that Ramona had given her. She supposed that if she was going to spend a <em>lot</em> of time out in the world, she should see about getting money somehow. Mugging people, maybe, while wearing the Sentinel costume. That seemed like a <em>wonderful</em> idea.</p>
  <p>Chuckling, Noriko made her way to the restaurant. Nobody she passed by had any powers, which wasn’t surprising, though it was a little disappointing. She had been hoping for some of the <em>good</em> stuff.</p>
  <p>And nobody inside the restaurant had powers, either. What was that factoid that Ramona had heard a few years ago? Roughly one in every twenty-thousand people had powers? Noriko had no idea if that was actually true or not, but it did mean the odds were against her with the fifty some people she had passed on her way here. And most of <em>them</em> had been zipping around in cars, moving out of range too fast for Noriko to grab onto them even if they had powers.</p>
  <p>Stepping outside of the restaurant, Noriko shifted the plastic bags from hand to hand as she glanced up at the black night sky. Something itched at the edge of her thought and she looked down just in time to see a woman in a mask slam into her, stumbling out of an alley.</p>
  <p>“What the hell?” Noriko squeaked, barely able to hold onto the bags as she went stumbling along the sidewalk.</p>
  <p>“Get up, get up,” another voice shouted as a second woman emerged from the alley. “Stop laying around and get up!”</p>
  <p>Noriko stared in shock before a smile started to form on her face. Oh, this was good. This was <em>too</em> good. She was a parahuman, Noriko could <em>tell</em>. Some people would have relied on the red and gold costume, but Noriko had a <em>much</em> more accurate sense to tell her these things. After all, the first woman was nothing more than a normal human, and she was wearing a pretty similar costume.</p>
  <p>“Don’t drop that bag,” the cape shouted as she yanked open the door of a nearby car. “Get in, get in!”</p>
  <p>A shot rang out and something whistled right by Noriko’s head. She quickly obeyed the cape and piled into the car, squashing the first woman as she slid into the backseat.</p>
  <p>“What the hell?” the woman said, speaking in quite the thick Boston accent. “Who are you?”</p>
  <p>Noriko didn’t answer and looked over her shoulder to see three men running out of the alleyway, waving pistols around. Then they quickly started to recede in the distance as the car lurched into gear and went off screaming down the street.</p>
  <p>“There, we’re- what the hell?” the masked woman up front said, looking in the rear view mirror. “Who the hell are you?”</p>
  <p>There were a lot of answers to that, but Noriko decided to go with the most normal one.</p>
  <p>“I’m Noriko,” Noriko replied, looking up and swallowing at the bullet hole through both of the rear windows. If she got killed so far away from Ramona, would she be coming back as Noriko or as the hypothetical Elsa? “Who are you?”</p>
  <p>“Never mind who we are, what are you <em>doing</em> here?” the woman in the back seat said, wiggling backwards and getting out from underneath Noriko.</p>
  <p>“You said ‘in here’ and opened up the car door,” Noriko said. “And I didn’t need telling because people were shooting.”</p>
  <p>“Oh, what the shit,” the masked woman up front muttered. “Jesus, am I a kidnapper now?”</p>
  <p>“Not if you let me out-whoa!” Noriko squeaked as the car suddenly jolted forward, speeding up as the woman up front went faster.</p>
  <p>“Come on, Maria, we can’t just keep her in here,” the woman in the back said.</p>
  <p>“Damn it, Susan, I’m wearing the mask!” Maria shouted.</p>
  <p>“Right, Bloodplay, right, listen, just pull off to the side and push her out,” Susan said. “Give her five bucks for her trouble and make sure she takes her,” the woman sniffed. “Is that Italian?”</p>
  <p>“I’m not stopping until we get back home,” Bloodplay said. “You want to be sitting around chatting when the Triple B’s find us?”</p>
  <p>“Ugh, fine,” Susan said, her Boston accent getting noticeably heavier. She pulled off her rigid plastic mask, holding it one hand and ran a hand through her short-cropped blonde hair. “Jesus, when you said that you wanted to spend some time with me, I didn’t think we’d be on the run from a gang.” She gave Noriko an apologetic smile. “Sorry about all this.”</p>
  <p>“No, no, it’s fine,” Noriko said. And it <em>was</em> fine, because she was draining Bloodplay’s powers as the car drove along.</p>
  <p>Not very quickly, because Ramona had the superior version of the draining process, but Noriko was still getting nice and full off of it. So, the ability to shrink down to a minimum of two inches and fire off lasers that got stronger the smaller you went? Either of those would be good, though Noriko wasn’t sure just how strong her copy of it all would be.</p>
  <p>“You have a fucked up definition of fine,” Bloodplay muttered. “And <em>shit</em>, they probably saw you, didn’t they?”</p>
  <p>“Those guys back there?” Noriko asked. “Yeah, probably.”</p>
  <p>“So they’ll think that you’re with us,” Bloodplay muttered, jerking the wheel to the side and sending the car in a sharp turn. “And we’re still in their territory. Fuck, we <em>can’t</em> just send you out on your own. By," she rapped the steering wheel, "all," and again, the," once more, "saints in heaven!”</p>
  <p>Noriko was quite sure about her ability to get back to hotel without any problems whatsoever. Just because some of her powers from Glory Girl and Cricket were starting to fade, that didn’t mean that she was <em>defenseless</em>. But she certainly didn’t want to leave until she got Bloodplay’s powers.</p>
  <p>“So, um, where are we going?” Noriko asked, looking around the Boston streets. There were a lot of signs for light industry and business to business shops around.</p>
  <p>“Ah Jesus, we’re going to have to take you back to the lair,” Bloodplay said, getting a snort of laughter from Susan. “Suzie, shut up and get a blindfold on her!”</p>
  <p>Noriko rolled her eyes at that, but Susan <em>did</em> obey and sat up, pulling out a strip of black cloth. She glanced at the slightly older woman as Susan ran a hand through her hair.</p>
  <p>“Don’t worry, the worst that could happen is that we end up paying you back for the food after eating it,” Susan said, leaning forward and fastening the cloth around Noriko’s eyes. “And,” she made a sound that was probably her patting the black bag, “we’ve got the money to do that.”</p>
  <p>Noriko thought that the knot would probably come undone if she turned her head to the side too quickly, but at least the material was strong enough to cut off her vision. So it <em>did</em> work as a blindfold, imagine that. Noriko honestly hadn’t been sure if it would or not, given, well, the quality that she was working with here.</p>
  <p>Maybe five minutes later, the car slid to a halt. Shortly thereafter, Noriko was hauled out of the car and marched forward, down what sounded like an alley, judging by the echoes. She wished that she had Cricket’s echolocation, but Ramona had gotten a lot better use out of that, she supposed. At least she had remembered to grab the bag of takeout.</p>
  <p>She stepped into a building and the blindfold was pulled off. Well, more like it fell off, really, coming undone with pretty much no effort at all and puddling on her feet. Noriko looked around at the first secret lair she had ever been in.</p>
  <p>The lair looked a <em>lot</em> like a disused laundromat. To the extent that there was still a smell of soap in the air. She kicked the scuffed tiling underneath her feet and looked at the boarded-up windows. There was just a hint of street light coming in through them.</p>
  <p>“Okay,” Bloodplay said, slumping down on a chair and rubbing her face. “This still worked out, we still got the money. Right?”</p>
  <p>“Right here,” Susan said, plopping the bag on a card table. “Want to count it now?”</p>
  <p>“Ugh, I’m too tense to count,” Bloodplay said. “Jesus, I hope I didn’t kill that guy back there.” She took her hand off of her face and looked at Noriko. “And what are we going to do with <em>you</em>?”</p>
  <p>“Is there a nearby set of train tracks to tie me to?” Noriko asked, sitting down on one of the other chairs and looking around with a smile. “Or are you more the type to threaten the city with a death ray and a prerecorded monologue?”</p>
  <p>Susan started laughing off to the side and Bloodplay threw a pen at her. Then she turned to look at Noriko, standing up straight and adjusting her mask so that it fit her better.</p>
  <p>“I don’t think you understand the position you’re in, young lady,” Bloodplay said, lowering her voice to sound threatening and going past that to the point of parody.</p>
  <p>“Oh, I get it just fine,” Noriko said with a smile. “You’re supervillains,” and wasn’t she being complimentary by including Susan in that? “And you’re going to do such awful things to me, right?” She grinned. “And if your imagination runs dry, I could suggest a few things that we could try.”</p>
  <p>Bloodplay made a spluttering sound underneath her blood-red mask and sat up straight in her chair. Noriko took a long step towards her and smiled. It would take a good half-hour for her to fully drain Bloodplay’s powers and her memories of what Ramona had been getting up to had made her curious about just how <em>fun</em> it was to do this sort of thing in real life, instead of just watching the screen as the memories played out.</p>
  <p>“A-are you trying to seduce me?” Bloodplay asked, sounding like Noriko had just picked up the table and smacked her around with it.</p>
  <p>“If I say no, would you believe me?” Noriko asked, grinning smugly as she took another step towards Bloodplay.</p>
  <p>“Holy shit, Maria,” Susan said, laughing so hard she was bent over, “you’ve got your first groupie! Your mom’s going to be so fucking proud when she hears about this!”</p>
  <p>“Shut up, Susan!” Bloodplay said, sounding <em>very</em> embarrassed. Then she turned back to look at Noriko and coughed nervously. “I mean, I, uh, I’m <em>interested</em>, you look good, but, um…”</p>
  <p>Noriko sat down in Bloodplay’s lap. There was a worrying moment as the camp chair creaked underneath both of their weight, but it stayed upright. And from here, Noriko could look through Bloodplay’s mask and see her wide, brown eyes.</p>
  <p>“Just think about it,” Noriko said softly, a coo in her voice. “The two of us,” she glanced over at Susan, wondering if it was <em>going</em> to stay at the two of them, “the proud, victorious villain, celebrating her win by ravishing her helpless captive.”</p>
  <p>“I, um, I,” Bloodplay said nervously.</p>
  <p>“Oh wow, you think that Maria would be the one doing the ravishing?” Susan called out, having opened up a bag of chips and tossed her mask off to the side. She was a slightly plain, slightly pretty girl around the same age as Ramona. “You don’t know her at <em>all</em>.”</p>
  <p>“Oh, just shut <em>up</em>, Susan!” Bloodplay said, sounding like all of her blood was in her cheeks by now.</p>
  <p>“I can work with that,” Noriko said, reaching down and tugging Bloodplay’s mask up.</p>
  <p>Bloodplay was prettier than Susan, though not by a lot. She had a cute, round face and her Latina ancestry was even more apparent in her than it was in Ramona. Noriko smiled and shifted around on Bloodplay’s lap, getting comfortable as she rested her hands on the supervillain’s shoulders.</p>
  <p>“So, what do you say, Maria?” Noriko asked, pitching her voice low and seductive. “Want to… <em>celebrate</em>?”</p>
  <p>“I, um, I’ve never, I mean, I…”</p>
  <p>Maria was obviously going to continue in that vein for <em>quite</em> a while if allowed. So Noriko cut her off with a kiss.</p>
  <p>It was a <em>nice</em> kiss. A very nice kiss. Noriko pressed her lips firmly up against Maria’s lips and slid her tongue into Maria’s mouth. Maria made quite the sound at that, wiggling around underneath Noriko. But she didn’t try to pull away or anything and let Noriko keep on kissing her.</p>
  <p>After a while, Maria’s hands came to rest on Noriko’s sides. They lightly squeezed down and Noriko laughed, kissing her again and wiggling her hips from side to side.</p>
  <p>Noriko didn’t need any powers to tell that Susan was closely watching the two of them, showing a lot more interest than just that of friends. She grinned to herself at the thought of a lesbian threesome. What a night <em>that</em> would end up being, hmm?</p>
  <p>Noriko’s hands were moving along Maria’s body, stroking her and drawing out a wide range of enjoyable sounds from the woman. Some <em>very</em> enjoyable sounds, actually. Noriko was having a great time as she played with the other woman, who was quite happy to <em>let</em> herself be played with. She didn’t do much to resist, not at <em>all</em>. She just let Noriko keep on touching her, moving her hands back and forth and making all sorts of interesting noises.</p>
  <p>She did get up the courage to put her hands underneath Noriko’s shirt, though, pressing against the bare skin. Noriko giggled a bit and returned the favor, though she moved her hands a lot further up along Maria’s body.</p>
  <p>“Oh,” Maria said in a soft voice. “Oh yes. This is so good-” She started to laugh. “Noriko's a very pretty name!”</p>
  <p>“I’m glad you like the sound of it, oh fearsome mistress of blood,” Noriko said with a smirk, “but my nickname is ‘hey you’.”</p>
  <p>That got a laugh from both of the women. And Noriko used the laughter to pull Maria’s red shirt up higher, so that the bottom of her small breasts were just barely visible. Noriko liked what she saw. She liked it a <em>lot</em>. And she kept on touching the other woman, even as arousal started to rise inside of Noriko.</p>
  <p>Noriko had never been turned on before and the memories she had gotten from Ramona really hadn’t done the feeling justice. She <em>liked</em> this, she liked it a hell of a lot. She shivered, feeling the heat inside of her, pulsing inside of her body. Her hips jerked back and forth and Noriko bit her lip, smiling.</p>
  <p>“Is, is it good for you?” Maria asked shyly.</p>
  <p>“Yeah, it’s <em>very</em> good,” Noriko said with a purr. “And I’m going to make sure that it’s good for you as well.” She winked. “Don’t you worry, darling, I’m going to make you feel <em>wonderful</em>.”</p>
  <p>Maria smiled and blushed at that. They kissed again and Noriko stroked the back of her head. Behind her, she could hear Susan moving, but didn’t look around to see what exactly was happening.</p>
  <p>Noriko just let her hands wander over more and more of Maria’s body, stroking her and making her feel <em>good</em> as Maria did her best to return the favor. Maria had to have more experience than Noriko did, since it was impossible <em>not</em> to, but she still seemed pretty unsure about herself. But that was just fine with Noriko.</p>
  <p>“Here,” Susan said behind them with a hiss of air. “This should be a lot more comfortable than that creaking chair.”</p>
  <p>Noriko looked behind her to see Susan inflating an air mattress, going up and down along a hand pump. She was right, that would give a lot more room to work on than a chair which had already tilted back alarmingly once already.</p>
  <p>“Shall we?” Noriko asked, already sliding off of Bloodplay’s lap and standing up.</p>
  <p>“I, yes,” Maria said, a shiver running through her entire body. “I mean, yes,” she sounded a bit more natural and confident now, but not a lot, “that sounds wonderful.”</p>
  <p>The two of them went over to the air mattress, which had only just finished being inflated. And as soon as the two of them sat down on it, Susan joined them.</p>
  <p>“What?” she asked with a blush and a nervous giggle. “I worked just as hard to get the cash. I get the fun too, right?”</p>
  <p>“Oh yeah, makes sense,” Noriko said, running a hand along Susan’s side, pressing against the costume that, she realized now, was nothing more than a sweater and a badly-died pair of jeans. She did the same to Maria. “Right?”</p>
  <p>“Um, yeah, right,” Maria said, looking up at Susan and blushing <em>hard</em> before looking away.</p>
  <p>Noriko chuckled and kissed them both. It was <em>nice</em> to kiss them both and she felt the heat inside of her getting, well, hotter. And <em>wetter</em> too. And her nipples were getting stiff inside of her bra. In general, she was getting really turned on and she was surprised at just how enjoyable the feeling really was.</p>
  <p>The three of them stripped out of their clothing, leaving themselves not wearing all that much. Noriko thought that the two of them looked <em>quite</em> good in what they had on. She highly approved of their underwear and liked how it tightly clung to their bodies. That wasn’t something she had ever thought about before coming into this world, but it was becoming a pretty high priority for her now.</p>
  <p>Noriko was amused to see that Bloodplay was wearing underwear in the same colors as her outfit. That was cute. She wondered if that was intentional or just the woman thinking that black and red looked good on her and continuing that theme for <em>everything</em> she was wearing.</p>
  <p>Susan ran her hands along Noriko’s sides before grabbing onto her rear. She groped it, fingers running along it and drawing some happy sighs from Noriko’s lips. Noriko’s own hands were split between Susan and Maria, taking care of them both. And neither one of them seemed to have the slightest problem with that.</p>
  <p>As things went on, Noriko lowered Maria’s head down between her legs. She had some memories of getting eaten out by Ramona and she was interested in seeing just how true to life the pleasure Ramona had remembered actually was.</p>
  <p>Pretty true, as it turned out. Noriko gasped as her hands tightened in Maria’s loose black hair and her hips jerked back and forth a bit. Noriko shivered and smiled. Oh <em>yes</em>, this was going to be very good indeed. And because Noriko was a kind, helpful sort of person, she was going to make sure that both Maria and Susan got to feel this sort of pleasure too. Maybe not from <em>her</em>, but surely they wouldn’t have a problem eating out each other, right?</p>
  <p>“Oh yeah, Maria,” Noriko said softly, rubbing her pussy against Maria’s lips. “Oh, that feels so <em>very</em> good.” She smiled. Don’t you dare stop.”</p>
  <p>“You know, Maria,” Susan said, kneeling down behind Maria and kneading her ass just like she had to Noriko, “if you’d just wear a tighter costume, your rear look <em>really</em> good.” She chuckled. “I’d be even more eager to follow you than normal if you did that.”</p>
  <p>Maria tried to pull her mouth away from Noriko’s pussy, but Noriko kept her right where she was. And Maria didn’t try very hard to get away in the first place. Noriko sighed in satisfaction, feeling the tongue licking and lapping at her folds and occasionally diving on inside to make Noriko feel <em>very</em> good indeed.</p>
  <p>Noriko could feel something welling up inside of her and realized that this had to be an orgasm. Well, it was about time that she got one! She wondered how, exactly, it would feel. Pretty good, from everything that Ramona had ever thought about one.</p>
  <p>Noriko supposed that she should focus on giving some of this pleasure back, though Maria and Susan seemed pretty happy with what the two of them were doing. Or at least what Susan was doing to Maria, kneeling down behind her and getting to work with a complete array of wet, lewd noises. Noriko groaned as she felt the pleasure rising up and up and up inside of her. She was going to <em>cum</em>.</p>
  <p>Orgasms were even better than she had thought they would be. Noriko’s jaw dropped open as she felt the pleasure shooting through her body, making her toes curl and her fingers clamp down on Maria’s scalp. She could only think about the hot red feeling spreading through her entire body. Noriko’s jaw opened and closed as she tried to say something or even think something. And it didn’t work. She just got to feel <em>good</em> as she shivered.</p>
  <p>Finally, Maria pulled back as the pleasure died inside of Noriko. She gasped and stared down at the Latina woman. Maria stared back at her, looking pretty turned on and pretty happy. Noriko smiled down at her and stroked the side of her cheek.</p>
  <p>“Well,” Noriko said, her brain kicking back into life as she found something to say. “That’s the best that I’ve ever been eaten out.”</p>
  <p>“Would you,” Maria swallowed heavily, “like to return the favor?”</p>
  <p>“I think I would,” Noriko said, smiling widely as she sank down to her knees. “And I think that I could go for another round of that, too.”</p>
  <p>Maria shivered and Susan chuckled. Susan piped up, running a hand up along Maria’s back to the base of her neck, which she started to rub.</p>
  <p>“I’ve always thought that a daisy chain could look… interesting,” Susan said, a blush on her face. “Do you girls want to try that out?”</p>
  <p>Noriko smiled blankly as she tried to figure out what Susan was talking about. If Ramona had ever known what that was, it had been one of the unimportant details that had been fogged over when Noriko looked at her memories.</p>
  <p>“Oh God, is that what you do at your botany classes?” Maria asked, her voice full of shock.</p>
  <p>“What? No, get your mind out of the gutter, jeez,” Susan said grumpily. “I <em>meant</em> that we’d form a triangle on the ground and that we’d eat each other out. See? Nothing weird about it.”</p>
  <p>“You’re right, that’s <em>normal</em>,” Noriko said with a grin. “I’m up for it.”</p>
  <p>“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Susan said, hugging herself, wrapping her slender body in her arms and smiling widely.</p>
  <p>Now that Noriko knew what it was that she should be doing, it was pretty easy to figure out what she was supposed to do. It just took a little bit of work and all three of them were forming an oddly-shaped circle, their heads buried in between each other’s thighs. She was in between Susan’s legs and Susan was taking care of Maria, who was taking care of Noriko again.</p>
  <p>Noriko considered the first look at another woman’s pussy she had gotten in ‘real life’. It was… not that bad looking, really. It was a bit plump and <em>very</em> wet. Noriko bought one hand up and prodded at it a bit, drawing a startled moan from Susan.</p>
  <p>“Sorry, it’s just been a <em>long</em> time since anyone else has touched me there,” Susan said. “It feels good, though.” She giggled. “It feels <em>really</em> good, actually.”</p>
  <p>And there were supposed to be plenty of ways to make it feel even better. Noriko leaned forward and ran her tongue back and forth along the wet folds, listening to the sounds that resulted. And considering the taste. It tasted different compared to what Ramona’s memories of ‘Yuri’ were like. But it was still a good enough taste, Noriko supposed. And the reaction that Susan gave helped push Noriko past any real consideration of the flavor.</p>
  <p>From the muffled moans that Noriko could feel against her pussy, it was clear that Maria was enjoying whatever it was that Susan was doing to her. And Noriko was, of course, enjoying what she was getting to feel as well. The sensations traveling through her body made her feel tingly and she licked her lips as she did the same to Susan.</p>
  <p>Susan quickly got even <em>more</em> aroused. It took Noriko by surprise, seeing just how much arousal was pouring out of her as Noriko licked and sucked and stroked her pussy. But it was pretty cool, really. Noriko smiled to herself as she watched Susan’s lower lips swallow up her finger as she probed it around inside of her. And there was the way that the muscles in Susan’s thighs moved as she jerked her leg back and forth. Noriko was aware that her own legs were doing the same as Maria tended to her, but it was still fascinating to see.</p>
  <p>Noriko planted a big, firm kiss on Susan’s labia and then stuck her tongue in between them. That got an appreciative moan from Susan and Noriko did it again, before moving on to see all of the other fun ways that she could toy with Susan’s body.</p>
  <p>It couldn’t last forever, of course. Pretty soon, Susan started making moaning sounds that were even deeper than before. Maria was making some similar sounds and, for that matter, Noriko was feeling pretty turned on herself. She shivered and ground her hips back and forth, feeling the lust rising to a second peak inside of her.</p>
  <p>She picked up what she was doing and kept on eating out Susan, running her tongue along the soaking wet lips and doing her best to push the other woman over the edge. Maria was doing the same to her and Noriko was sure that Susan was doing the same to Maria. They were all working together wonderfully and-</p>
  <p>Noriko’s second orgasm of the day swept through her. Noriko moaned into Susan’s pussy as she felt the lust spike inside of her, rising to a wonderful high before settling back down. She shivered, panting and gasping as she listened to the other two women having the same experience. It felt <em>wonderful</em> and Noriko realized that it was even better because she was sharing it with others. That was a strange thought but one that Noriko realized she rather liked.</p>
  <p>Maria and Susan both rolled away from her, falling onto their backs and staring upwards, panting for air. Noriko looked at both of them, running her eyes over their bodies. She made sure to get a <em>good</em> mental image of what they looked like, so that Ramona would be able to appreciate it later.</p>
  <p>What made the orgasm even better was the fact that Noriko had gotten the last of Bloodplay’s power. It was all sitting inside of her belly, nice and snug and waiting to be used. Noriko supposed she could stick around, since there was no way that these two were a threat, especially in the state they were in. But… Noriko did like Ramona and the original flavor was probably going nuts worrying about her by now. Noriko stood up on very shaky legs and walked over to where her coat had ended up.</p>
  <p>Well, <em>that</em> had been fun. Noriko smiled as she sat back, feeling nice and full with the new power sitting inside of her belly. And now it really was time to get back home.</p>
  <p>“Oh wow,” Maria said, staring up at the ceiling. “Oh wow, I can’t believe it was this good.” There was a big smile on her face. “This is the best night ever.”</p>
  <p>“I can’t believe we actually did this again,” Susan said with a smile on her face. “And we weren’t even drunk this time.”</p>
  <p>“And you should have some sweet dreams to go along with it,” Noriko said, dipping her hand into her coat pocket. “Enjoy.”</p>
  <p>Noriko took a deep breath and held it as she tossed the sleep bomb out to land in between Susan and Maria. They had just enough time for their eyes to go wide in panic before it started to hiss, shooting out a purple-colored gas.</p>
  <p>Noriko had quickly backed up all the way to the rear door and stuck her head outside. Bloodplay managed to rise to her feet before sinking back down, landing half-on and half-off of the chair. Susan didn’t even manage that much and just made a muttering sound as she collapsed. Noriko nodded in satisfaction. A job well done, all around.</p>
  <p>Noriko quickly got dressed and looked at the bag of money for a long while. Nah, not worth it. Instead, she just took the (now thoroughly cold) takeout order in one hand and started to figure out how to get a<br/>taxi down here.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <b>***</b>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“What on earth <em>happened</em>?” Ramona asked, hissing the question out as the hotel door finally opened. “I thought you’d gotten mugged or something.”</p>
  <p>“Yeah, pretty much,” Noriko said with a giggle as she walked in and made a beeline for the microwave. “But look! I got the food!”</p>
  <p>Ramona opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, obviously stopping herself from sharing the first few thoughts that came to mind about that. Noriko grinned at that and stepped back as the microwave came to life, heating up the sausage and noodles.</p>
  <p>“Tell you what,” Noriko said, “I’m sure you must be starving, so instead of playing twenty questions, I’ll just let you look over my memories.”</p>
  <p>And that would mean that Noriko wouldn’t really be around to have to answer any inconvenient questions. She stuck out her hand and Ramona took it on instinct, her power already flaring to accept taking Noriko back as what she was when she wasn’t walking around and talking.</p>
  <p>“What the <em>fuck</em>?”</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>